


Metanoia

by MakaylaJade



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Autism, Autistic Spencer Reid, Bisexual Derek Morgan, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Use, Established Relationship, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, Freeform, Frostbite, Gay Spencer Reid, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Making Love, Male Homosexuality, Murder, Near Death Experiences, Poetic elements, Rape, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Assault, Suicidal Thoughts, drug overdose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:40:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 16
Words: 39,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27890167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MakaylaJade/pseuds/MakaylaJade
Summary: metanoia[meh-ta-noy-a] - Greek(n.) the journey of changing one's mind, heart, self, or way of life; spiritual conversion-Oh, Derek… He couldn’t stand the thought of him bursting in with SWAT in tow, gun at the ready, only to descend those creaky stairs and find his naked, bleeding body, vacated of life, crumbled on a red-stained mattress. The realization that he was going to die at the end of this was catching up to him, but maybe it would be better that way.In which an unfortunate resemblance to an unsub's victims puts Reid right on his radar.
Relationships: Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid
Comments: 180
Kudos: 298





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! Welcome to my second long-term fic! I'm glad to have you with me for the ride, as long and bumpy as it is bound to be.
> 
> Please take care to acknowledge the tags above, and as always, thank you for your support! 
> 
> I hope you enjoy Metanoia - please let me know what you think in the comments and be sure to leave kudos!

metanoia

[meh-ta-noy-a] - Greek

(n.) the journey of changing one's mind, heart, self, or way of life; spiritual conversion

* * *

Reid expected this to be a normal case. Nothing out of the ordinary, and even when he and the team had been sitting at the round table listening to Garcia's briefing, it seemed to be a clean cut case. Anchorage, Alaska was a pretty large town, with almost three hundred thousand residents, 291,538, to be exact. Garcia had twittered on about the easiness of this case, and that instilled a sense of relief in everyone, but for some reason, Reid didn't find comfort in her assurances. It turned out, not many people in Anchorage were welcoming to outsiders, just like they had experienced before in Franklin.

The complexity of the case was almost nonexistent, and at first, it appeared to be an American version of the late Dennis Nilsen with a heightened god complex. Young men, brutalized and tortured, left in the Alaskan wilderness, naked besides the blood coating their skin and the snow that accumulated atop them. Their killer clearly had a type; brunets with pale skin and dark eyes, relatively lanky and openly homosexual. So far three victims had been found, killed within three weeks of each other, but the overlap between the time they were declared missing and found dead pointed to a holding period, typical of sexual sadists. This was worrisome, and although Reid wasn't entirely sure if he was the only one who felt panic surge in his chest upon the realization that their killer would be striking again within the next forty-eight hours, he knew it was best to stay calm and level headed.

Reid was going through some of the files for nearly the fifth time, as if his magnificent mind couldn't comprehend something regarding this relatively simple case. It was strange to feel so distraught about a case like this, when he had seen and read far worse without even flinching - but then again, anybody else with a shockingly eerie resemblance to the victims would probably be feeling uncomfortable too, right?

"First victim, native Mark Clayborn, twenty-four years old. Second and third victim have yet to be identified. Mark was found with ligature marks around the wrists and ankles and--I don't want to know any of the icky bits," Garcia complained, a distressed expression on her rounded face as she looked away and clicked a button on the remote that controlled the slideshow, showing off the crime scene photos. Morgan took one look at Mark Clayborn before looking to Reid, obviously noticing their similarities. The look on his face was something akin to concern; _Are you okay?_

Of course he was concerned. Unbeknownst to the rest of the BAU, Spencer and Derek had been harboring a secret relationship, and had been for quite awhile now. In fact, in a couple of days, it would be their eleven month anniversary. After they bared their hearts to each other during the Owen Savage case, the two naturally gravitated towards each other and relied on one another in a way they never thought they would need. It was usually just late night hangouts with movies and popcorn, but when Derek asked Spencer if he wanted to try going out on a _real_ date, he couldn’t say no, and the thought never even passed his mind. They didn’t ever let it get in the way of their work, and they never let it show in public. Although, they had engaged in some rather… _risky_ behavior, including heated moments of passion in the Bureau bathrooms and lingering touches in the bullpen or while on cases. But nobody said anything, and nobody would, if Spencer had anything to do about it.

Reid offered a tight lipped smile in his direction, dark eyes shy, _I’ll be fine._

"Ligature marks around the wrists and ankles, burns across the chests of the victims and clear sign of other physical trauma. Evidence of sexual assault,” Hotch said, almost clinically, briefly meeting Reid’s gaze. Reid’s eyes were quick to fall back to his papers, slender fingers curling around the files like they were his safe haven despite the horror contained inside.

“Sexual sadist,” Rossi pointed out, a finger under his chin in thought.

“Okay, ew,” Garcia complained with a wave of her hand, dismissing the disgusting information almost immediately and clicking the button on her remote to advance to the next slide, more pictures of their crime scenes including the haphazard positioning of the bodies in the snow, many of them partially or completely frozen blue. They were thrown out like trash, lanky limbs sprawled out and not a shroud of clothing to hide any dignity they had left. They weren’t posed, at least not that they could tell, and it seemed more like the locations were dumpsites rather than burial sites.

“Does local law enforcement have any leads?” Morgan questioned.

“Nothing yet, which is why we’re being called in. Wheels up in twenty,” Hotch said before dismissing them all, the group dispersing to prepare for take off.

Upon arrival, the Anchorage sheriff Benjamin Hayes was waiting for them, bringing them along to the police department where they were all quick to get to work. The two John Does had been identified as twenty-six year old Hayden Meyers and twenty-three year old Justin Hughes. Hotch sent Rossi and Prentiss to the latest crime scene while JJ and Reid were to interview the family of Mark Clayborn. Morgan was to help debrief the police officers joining them for the case. As soon as he stepped in to that vacant office, Reid felt uncomfortable with the way Mr. Clayborn was looking at him, probably seeing the resemblance between Reid and his own son.

“Mr. and Mrs. Clayborn, we’re very sorry about the loss of your son,” JJ started as they joined the family at the table provided. “I’m Agent Jareau and this is Doctor Spencer Reid,” she said to introduce them, and despite Reid’s contempt for hand-shaking, he shook both of their hands to create an intimacy for the interview, to make them as comfortable as possible. JJ sat down across from the couple and Reid leaned his hip into the edge of the table while holding a file in his hand, scanning them both quickly and subtly for any behavioral signs that didn’t typically fit grieving parents. Mrs. Clayborn was holding her husband’s hand, though it seemed almost one-sided since Mr. Clayborn was a bit out of it, most likely since the realization was only now dawning upon him that his son was dead and the FBI was taking over the case.

“It’s never supposed to be _you_ , you know?” The mother sobbed, shaking her head and raising her free hand upwards to wipe at her eyes, though that was pretty much done in vain since it did not stop the steady stream whatsoever. “It’s always something that happens to _other_ people, that you see on the news or read about in the paper. Not to us… Not to my baby.”

“We’d like to ask you some questions regarding your son,” Reid said gently, his voice low and bordering on comforting. Despite his occasional discomfort and inability to read social cues, he was good at interviewing loved ones’ families. The awkward, nerdy, autistic-leaning Dr. Reid was actually _very good_ at talking to families, and with carefully phrased questions and comforting tones, he was able to get information from them that they didn’t even know they knew. 

“Anything… We’ll do anything to help,” Mr. Clayborn said, his voice deep and somewhat rough, although it sounded genuinely distraught. It wasn’t easy to fake trauma, and Reid had no doubt in his mind that Mark Clayborn’s parents had nothing to do with his death.

“We believe that Mark’s death is connected to the murders of two other young men in the Anchorage area,” he said, pulling out two blown up pictures of the other victims, Justin’s being a photo taken from a social media site and Hayden’s being a professionally taken one from his first photoshoot, an aspiring model.However, all three of them shared an uncanny resemblance to each other, dark hair, dark eyes, slender physiques. “Do you recognize either of them?”

Both shook their heads and Mrs. Clayborn brushed her hand over the photo of Hayden, “He looks like my baby,” she observed in a shaky voice, nearly falling apart again until JJ diverted their attention to another question so that they wouldn’t lose them for good.

“Were there any places that Mark frequented? Any bars or hangout spots?” She asked them, sharing a second long glance at Reid who met her eyes without hesitation before returning his attention to the Clayborns.

“No… Once he left for college, he didn’t really come around as much. He stayed in the dorms on campus for the first two years, and then he and a friend got an apartment together. He called, sometimes, but we only saw him a couple times a month,” Mr. Clayborn explained. They shared a glance once more at the mention of a ‘friend.’

  
“Mr. and Mrs. Clayborn, were you aware of your son’s sexuality?” Reid asked, phrasing the question delicately to leave room for an adequate response. If their son was gay, it could possibly lead them to a potential suspect pool. Mrs. Clayborn sighed softly and shared a look with her husband who frowned deeply.

“We… knew that Mark was experimenting with his sexuality. In high school, we both had our suspicions that Mark was gay, or at least bisexual, but we never questioned it. We figured he would tell us when he was ready,” Mrs. Clayborn murmured, wiping at her watery eyes once more.

“Is it possible that this friend of Mark’s could have been his partner?”

“He would have told us,” Mrs. Clayborn insisted, but her husband looked less confident.

“Mr. Clayborn?” JJ prompted.

“He was always so secretive,” he said, “Like my wife said, he never really ‘came out’ to us, so we didn’t know what to expect. He never talked about girls in high school like most boys do. In fact, he never really talked about _anybody_.”

“Do you know the friend’s name?” Reid questioned, and both parents, once again, shook their head. JJ and Reid shared one final look before standing up simultaneously and shaking the Clayborns’ hands once more.

“Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Clayborn. You’ve been a great help. If we find out anything new, you will be the first to know,” JJ said, showing the parents out while Reid rejoined Hotch, Morgan, and the local detective in the conference room.

“The Clayborns are definitely distraught, but it’s amazing how little they actually knew about their son,” he revealed to the group back in the conference room, closing the door behind them so that they could all talk with some privacy.

“He was hiding his sexuality?” Morgan asked, and Reid was reminded briefly of how own personal battles with uncovering his sexuality.

“I don’t think he was hiding,” Reid disagreed, “it seems more like he _didn’t_ hide it, and the parents didn’t know any better. Mr. Clayborn made the comment that Mark would have told them if he was dating anybody. Has Garcia been able to identify Mark’s roommate?”

“Yes, she said his name is Blake Deters. There’s currently a missing persons report out for him, and he hasn’t been seen since Mark’s body was found.”

“Morgan, I want you and Reid to head to Mark Clayborn’s apartment, look through his life. Try to talk to some of his neighbors too,” Hotch said with a firm expression, and after a moment or so of eye contact shared between them, they left the room together, Reid’s spindly fingers wrapped around the strap of his messenger bag while Derek swung the keys around.

“How are you doing, baby?” Derek asked casually once they were safe and alone together in the SUV, and Reid smiled warmly in his direction, unable to help the blush dusting over the high curves of his cheekbones from the term of endearment. Derek said it so often, but it still sent a flutter in his chest every time he heard it.

“I’m okay. The Clayborns weren’t very helpful, but I’m sure we’ll find something at Mark’s place that can tell us more,” he said, leaning his head back against the headrest and sighing deeply. Morgan’s hand came over to rest on his leg, squeezing his thigh through his corduroys. A shiver ran up his spine, his tongue darting out to wet his lips nervously. Morgan was so natural when it came to physical contact, but sometimes it still took Reid time to get used to it.

“It makes me nervous, you know,” he started, putting the keys in the ignition, “All of the victims look like you.”

“Der, I’m an average looking man,” he reasoned, “Tall, brown eyes, brown hair. _A lot of men_ look like me.”

“You’re far from average, sweetheart,” Derek said, reiterating his point with another squeeze to his thigh before both hands lifted up to the steering wheel. “Just promise me you’ll be careful?”

“As long as you do the same,” Reid insisted, earning a sharp look from Morgan in response. Spencer just sighed out a soft chuckle, shaking his head. “Fine, fine. I _promise_.”

“Good. Don’t want anything happening to you again, Spence.” That word, _again_ , held so much baggage behind it that neither needed explaining to understand. They simply shared another glance and headed on their way.

Little did they know, this case and the fates of Mark Clayborn and the other innocent boys would change both of their lives forever.

* * *

_"There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth."_

\- Friedrich Nietzsche

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 2/20/21


	2. II

_“I thought about how there are two types of secrets: the kind you want to keep in, and the kind you don’t dare to let out.”_

\- Ally Carter

* * *

“Hey, babe, come look at this, this looks important,” Morgan observed from where he was standing in Mark’s bedroom. They had made it to Mark Clayborn's apartment a little while ago, about twenty minutes now, and while Morgan took Mark’s bedroom, Reid took his roommate, Blake Deters’, room. Reid peeked into the room, a pair of blue latex gloves covering his hands.

“What is it?” He asked, stepping behind Derek and looking over his shoulder at the journal in Morgan’s hands. One of Derek’s own blue glove-covered fingers traced down the lined page, stopping at a rather interesting line, and reading it aloud, “‘ _I know that I am probably just crazy. Blake says that I’m too stressed and I haven’t been sleeping enough. But I saw him again. For just a second, out of the corner of my eye on my way to my car after class. He was just standing at the bus stop like before, but as soon as I saw him, he seemed to disappear. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I think Blake might be right_.’”

“He was being stalked,” Reid said thoughtfully, reading the rest of the page within a second or two. “I’d like to read this entire journal, see if he wrote anything else about this stalker.” Morgan seemed to agree immediately, handing it over to the younger man who took it into eager hands immediately.

“Hopefully you’ll get something from it,” Morgan said, moving to take his gloves off since there wasn’t much else to investigate. “We definitely need a lead right about now. Blake is missing, and it’s possible he’s either the next victim or the unsub.”

“Right… Another thing I noticed was that Blake’s bed hasn’t been slept in, in quite awhile. The bedding is made, but underneath the comforter, there isn’t a fitted sheet so I doubt he’s been sleeping in there,” Reid recounted to Derek.

“So they slept together, then. That confirms that Mark and Blake were in a relationship,” Derek pointed out, “We suspected that already. But it begs the question - did the unsub know that they were together?”

Reid’s only answer was a grim expression, and after a quick call to Hotch to let him know of their findings, they were ready to head back to the precinct. But before that, Morgan’s arms looped lazily around Reid’s thin waist and he pulled him close from behind. Reid hummed happily and let his head drop back to rest against Morgan’s shoulder, his hands sliding overtop of Derek’s as they moved around to press against his flat stomach.

“When we get home, we’re going to order Indian takeout and cuddle,” Derek insisted in a soft murmur, pressing his lips just beneath Spencer’s ear. The young doctor just chuckled, his eyes fluttering shut.

“That's it?” He asked suggestively, fingers lacing with Derek’s over his belly, “I know we’ll probably be exhausted, but I think I’ll be disappointed if that’s all we do.”

“Oh, the things you do to me, Dr. Reid,” Derek teased, his breath hot against Spencer’s pale throat, “Just think: the sooner we solve this case, the sooner I’ll make love to you.”

“You really know how to motivate someone,” Spencer said, pulling away from Derek and spinning around in his arms, smiling at his lover, “But we have more important things to do. At least kiss me before we leave.” And with that said, he leaned forward and pressed their lips together warmly, the two sharing a slow, passionate kiss before heading out of the apartment.

Like the gentleman he was, Morgan opened the passenger side door of the SUV for Reid and with a warm smile and gentle brush of his hand over Derek’s bicep, he slid in and pulled the door shut behind him. Morgan circled the car and hopped into the driver’s seat, starting her up and preparing to leave. Inside, Reid already had the journal opened, his eyes skimming down the paper while his finger acted as a speedy guide.

Within a small blue sedan just across the street, the bus stop frequenter sat inside and stared them down. His fisted hands trembled atop his ripped jeans, his teeth gritting and his eyes watering from pure anger. However, as soon as he caught sight of that tall, pale, beautiful boy, his breathing hitched and his tongue darted out to cross his lips. He was perfect, and he could already imagine taking him apart piece by piece. He would have him - in time.

* * *

“Anything, Spence?” Morgan asked as they pulled up to the precinct, and just as he put the SUV in park, Reid finished up the last page of the journal. Spencer looked to him and nodded instantly, “I found a few things, but I want to share with everyone,” he said, and with that, they were out of the SUV and entering the precinct with equally fast paced walks.

“I just finished reading Mark Clayborn’s journal, and I found a few interesting entries,” Reid said as soon as they were in hearing range of the rest of the team. By then, Rossi and Prentiss had returned from the most recent crime scene and JJ was off interviewing Hayden Meyers’ boyfriend. Everyone turned to acknowledge him when they registered his presence, Hotch gesturing for Sheriff Hayes to come over so he could be apart of the discussion. When Reid was sure he had everyone’s attention, he delved into an explanation. “Mark was being stalked. He-He wrote about seeing a man at different bus stops several times and how he thought he was following him. This is the first entry he wrote, it says, uh, ‘ _Didn’t know if I was imagining it or not, but when I saw him for the second time after class, I knew it couldn’t be a coincidence. I talked to Blake about it and he doesn’t seem to think anything of it. Maybe I need to see a therapist.’_ And then just a week later he wrote, ‘ _I know I’m not imagining this anymore. When I got to my car this morning, there was a bouquet of roses on my seat and a note that said he was coming for me soon. The police are useless, when I tried to file a report, I was brushed off. Considering buying a gun.’”_

“If Mark was being stalked, that means Blake Deters was probably being stalked too,” Hotch observed simply, looking around to the rest of his team. “Which means it’s more likely that Blake is actually a victim too.”

“But he isn’t exactly the unsub’s type,” Emily noted, “He’s blonde and blue eyed.”

“But if the unsub is getting desperate, he might have taken Blake as a forensic countermeasure. Especially if Blake was on to him,” Morgan commented.

“If Blake really is the unsub’s next victim, it’s only a matter of time before a body shows up. Especially since he won’t fit into his fantasy. Has Garcia been able to get anything on Deters?” Rossi asked, and as if on cue, she popped up on the laptop positioned on the table. They gathered around it in a semi circle as she spoke.

“Hello, my lovelies! So, as Bossman asked me to do, I looked into Blake Deters; his school, financials, private life… He’s as clean as a whistle. No criminal record, straight A’s in school, he’s the general manager at Romeo’s Pizzeria… There’s nothing hinky about him as far as I can tell,” she said, before perking up with a bit more information, “Oh, but I did find out something! All four victims attended the same college and at some point in their studies, took the same class. It was an art history course titled ‘ _The Beauty of the Male Physique in Ancient Greece_ ,’” she said with her eyebrows raised to her hairline, “And according to some of the class reviews, it’s very focused on male relationships and sexual fluidity in ancient Greece.”

“That’s probably how our unsub is picking his victims. It can’t be a coincidence that all of our victims are gay and they all happen to take the same course on male homosexuality in Greece,” Prentiss said, and Hotch nodded, arms crossing over his chest.

“Garcia, I want a list of every man who has taught that class as well as every male student who has taken that class since our first victim, Mark Clayborn. I don’t care how many names there are, just configure a list that we can narrow down later with more parameters,” he said, and Garcia flashed him two thumbs up, “As fast as my perfectly dainty fingers can type, Sir!”

For the rest of the evening, they continued to bounce ideas off of each other, and after denoting that, due to the sophistication of the crimes as well as the confidence their unsub displayed in the torture and disposal methods, he was an older man, most likely between the ages of thirty and fifty with an academic background (this assumption was only made since all four victims took the same course, meaning it was likely that he had an affiliation with the college they all attended or some connection to academia). With little discovered and not much to go off of, Hotch told them all to head to the hotel to get some sleep, so they could start fresh in the morning. It wouldn’t help anyone if they continued to stress themselves out and work with information they didn’t have, but still reluctantly, they gathered into their two SUVs and were on their way.

That was a mistake.

Everything went downhill as soon as Reid slid into the backseat of the SUV, Morgan driving and Prentiss in the passenger seat. Legs crossed, hands grasping onto the case files on his lap, he wasn’t paying attention to the road. That was Morgan’s job as the driver, but he didn’t think it really mattered how good of a driver Morgan was - it was bound to happen anyway. About halfway to their destination, a car slammed directly into the passenger side, metal screeching and sparks flying. Reid felt the impact against his right side, pain exploding through his thigh and up to his torso. He was left breathless, gasping for air as the shattered glass gathered in his lap and warmth dripped from the side of his head, his ears ringing and his vision blurring.

But he couldn’t even focus on that right now. His body was in immense pain and before he even had a chance to look to the front seats to check on Morgan and Prentiss, he was being grabbed and forced out of the car against his will, gangly boded unsteady and practically being dragged away from the wreckage. He couldn’t even retaliate, his head pounding and confusion taking over. He didn’t know where he was or what exactly had happened, his voice catching in his throat as he attempted to say Derek’s name. He was roughly maneuvered into the back of another car by strong hands, hearing a muttered voice saying something that he didn’t quite comprehend. His eyes grew heavy, and before he knew it, everything went black.

* * *

_And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor,_

_Shall be lifted - Nevermore._

Excerpt from “The Raven” - Edgar Allan Poe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 2/20/21


	3. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: Explicit rape scene.

_Parched and cracked_   
_I wait for you_   
_Come as you are_   
_As soft rain_   
_Or as a thunderstorm_   
_In the end_   
_It all means the same_   
_You keep me alive_

“Nourish” -MM

* * *

Cold. Dark. _Cold._ The overwhelming pressure of fear building in his chest was almost paralyzing and the pain coursing through his body made it hard to breathe. It made him want to curl up and die on that freezing, hard floor, the only warmth being the blood sticking to his head and matting his hair. He wondered if he was already dead, and having some out of body experience. But Spencer was a man of science - he didn’t believe in the soul, or at least not the romanticized version of its existence.

He believed in chemicals, because they were real, tangible, and explainable. The high levels of dopamine and norepinephrine released during attraction and the continued stimulation of the brain was what made sense to him. That was why he loved Derek, not because their souls were destined to meet, but because Derek set off just the right chemical reaction within Spencer, and Spencer did the same for Derek. In his understanding, that was far more romantic than some unrealistic idea of an immortal, spiritual essence that everyone supposedly possessed. Love wasn’t some abstract concept. It was science, and that was comforting to Reid because as terrible as he was with relationships, the chemistry behind it made sense to him. Although, nothing would ever explain to him how the chemistry within Derek’s brain mirrored his own. To think a man like Derek loved him was incomprehensible, but he wouldn’t ever take it for granted. He valued it and cherished every drop of love that Derek gave him. And he needed that more than ever right now.

The sound of metal clanging somewhere nearby, most likely a door of some sort, brought Spencer back to reality, proving that he was in fact still alive, and he almost believed it to be an unfortunate realization. He was definitely concussed, his head spinning and his ability to understand the current situation completely nonexistent, but he could definitely feel the bindings, most likely rope, tying his wrists together in front of him. He had almost forgotten how he had gotten here, and what led up to this point, but a pair of hands roughly sitting him up on the floor completely erased those quantitative thoughts and reminded him of his abduction from the backseat of their SUV.

  
A gasp passed his lips as a hand grasped the underside of his chin, his dark eyes half lidded yet unable to see anything. At first he thought that maybe his vision hadn’t come back to him, but he realized soon enough that it was a blindfold tied around his head, tight against his scalp and pulling his hair uncomfortably - his hair most likely got caught in the knot from the feel of it.

“Wha… Who?…” Reid heard his garbled words, his dry, scratchy throat constricting violently. He swallowed, hoping the saliva would soothe the soreness. His assailant was clearly not impressed, but the large hand from before came to cup his cheek, and he could smell the lingering residue of tobacco and cigarettes.“Hush now,” he said gruffly, bile burning in his esophagus at the hot stench of his breath; Definitely a smoker.

Reid felt like he might pass out again, but he knew that was too good to be true. Pain spread over his body as he grew more and more aware, despite his concussed state. He felt his body maneuvered about before he was lifted effortlessly, bridle style, and carried off. The sound of wood creaking under the unsub’s footfalls and the downward decline made him quite aware that they were heading downstairs, into a basement if he had to guess. The temperature seemed to drop a bit as well, since he felt cooler now that they were in the subterranean world.He was tossed onto something plush, a bed or at least a mattress by the feel of it. He was left untouched for a few minutes, listening to the sound of some rustling nearby. His mind was severely debilitated at the moment, the concussion taking away his rapid-fire cognitions and thought processes. He felt helpless, even more so when his pants were ripped from his waist and pulled down to his ankles, his belt tossed aside without regard. Those hands were holding him down, pressing into his hips and searing their touch into the very core of his being until he was branded with the shame and horror of what was to come. His shirt came next, the buttons popping off since it was practically ripped apart in the front.

“Beautiful boy,” he heard the voice above him, although it sounded like his head was underwater. He continued to talk as foreign hands slid down to his thighs, “So pretty… part your legs, darling.”

Reluctantly, his legs spread apart. He couldn’t fight in his current state, and he wasn’t in any position to talk his way out of this, so logically, it made more sense to play along. Spencer endured the sensation of dry fingers carving him out like butcher knives until he was sure he had been eviscerated internally. He was gasping and crying out for mercy, bound hands clenching and unclenching into fists atop his chest desperately. His dark eyes dared not to close even beneath the blindfold, because as painful as it was, he feared that if he closed them, they would never open again.

When those fingers finally withdrew from him, he was left a gasping and sobbing mess, his tears wetting the blindfold and his hands trembling. His legs started to close again, but thick hands were quick to grasp onto his skinny thighs roughly, “Keep ‘em apart, boy!” the unsub growled angrily, and Spencer yelped at a sharp smack against his thigh.

“Look at you, all puckered and ready for me. You have no idea what you do to me, pretty boy,” his assailant murmured lowly, and Spencer shivered at the name. It had once been one of his favorite terms of endearment, but now, he doubted he would be able to hear the sound of even Derek saying it. It would be a long, long time before he could handle bedroom talk. The unsub’s disgusting praises were engraved into his mind forever.

“Please don’t,” he heard himself beg, but for all he knew, it might have been the voice in his mind asking for mercy.

His legs were bent and pushed apart further, the unsub grasping onto his knobby knees and fitting himself between them. From what Reid could feel, he was a big man, broad and muscular since he was able to pick him up and maneuver him about as he pleased; not that Spencer was heavy, by any means, but even Morgan, as buff as he was, complained about carrying his one hundred and thirty pound frame. Oh, Derek… He couldn’t stand the thought of him bursting in with SWAT in tow, gun at the ready, only to descend those creaky stairs and find his naked, bleeding body, vacated of life, crumbled on a red-stained mattress. The realization that he was going to die at the end of this was catching up to him, but maybe it would be better that way.

It wasn’t long until he felt piercing agony, splitting him in two with the man’s forceful breach and igniting within him a fire that burned his very being and left nothing but ashes in its wake. Screams of pure agony ripped from his throat, but nothing came of it. It only urged his assailant on, and that left Spencer feeling more hopeless than he ever had before. Everything was too much, too overwhelming to him, and the sudden unwelcome fullness within him was _too much_. All he could think about was Derek. His Derek, knowing he was in pain and knowing he was in danger because he could _feel it_ just like he could feel his own pain.

Spencer didn’t believe in the soul.

But god, did he wish he could. Derek was the only thing keeping him alive, and he clung to that reality just as his rapist clung to him.

He wasn’t entirely sure when it ended, but he knew it was over when he was left empty and aching, the blindfold clinging to his overflowing eyes. Spencer could hardly imagine the state of his own body, and the pain he felt hardly compared to the cold numbness spreading across his bruising skin. The sound of the stairs creaking under the unsub’s weight was the only sign that he was now alone, but that was perhaps worse than the pain he felt before. Because as terrified as he was, all he could do was wail miserably, his voice echoing off of the walls and ricocheting like bullets into his body until he was a mess of agony and shame, blood and semen.

Derek would be coming soon. He had to. While his naked body trembled on that red mattress, while his tears soaked into the blindfold, all he thought about was Derek because that was all he _could_ think about.

Spencer didn’t believe in the soul, but he most certainly believed in Derek.

* * *

When Morgan came to, it was to the feeling of hands touching him, fingers pressing against the pulse point on his neck while a voice called out that he was alive, and proceeded to reverberate painfully through his skull. He hissed in pain, raising a trembling hand up to his head to feel hot blood under his fingertips. His vision was blurry - concussion - but he could make sense of what was going on around him while the memories flooded back in. A car crash, in which another vehicle plowed into the passenger side of the SUV. His head had bounced against the glass like a rubber ball while Prentiss and Reid took the brunt of the impact since they had been sitting on that side.

Reid…

“Sp-Spencer…” he whispered at first, shoving away an EMT’s hands while glancing around the car frantically. Emily seemed to be in a state similar to his own, dazed and unsteady. She tried to fight the obvious haziness, but that didn’t seem to do her any good since the expression on her face when she regarded Morgan was one of confusion and lack of understanding.

“Spencer…!” He called out then, and the EMT hushed him quietly, but Derek didn’t deter, “Where’s Spencer, what happened?” Derek was writhing in his seat, the seat belt buckled behind his back and digging into his ribcage rather painfully. It was in that moment that he realized the airbags on both sides had burst from their confines within the dashboard and steering wheel, and the throbbing in his face was most likely from a broken nose or orbital bone, if he had to guess, but it was all blurring together anyway and _where was Reid?!_

Desperately, he glanced in the rearview mirror to catch sight of the backseat, but it was empty and the only sign that another person had been in the car was the blood splattered on the leather seats and vinyl door. He was panicking now, saying Spencer’s name over and over again, expecting _someone_ to give him an explanation as to why he couldn’t see his Spencer anywhere near him when he knew for a damned fact that he had been there before.

“Sir, we need to get you to the hospital. You have a concussion,” an EMT tried to soothe the quickly escalating situation, but Derek wasn’t having any of that.

“Where is he?” He growled out.

“Sir?...”

“Spencer!” He shouted as if that was all the explanation needed, “H-He was in the car, in the back, he’s an agent, he’s my partner, is he at the hospital already?” The EMT only looked more confused, glancing back to the backseat of the SUV.

“Sir, when we arrived on scene, there were only the two of you in the car.”

Derek’s world imploded, and wordlessly, he allowed himself to be helped out of the car. The ground swayed beneath him, or maybe it was his own legs - all he knew was that Spencer was not where he should have been and he needed to find Hotch as soon as possible. Luckily that didn’t take much effort, because Hotch was soon approaching him with furrowed brows and a clearly concerned expression on his face.

“Hotch, he-he’s gone, he’s not there, I don’t know where he is, _where is he?_ ” Derek slurred desperately, and Hotch seemed confused at first before realization set in.

“Derek, I need you to calm down. Look at me, _look at me_ ,” Hotch demanded in his sharpest voice, but it was impossible to miss the panic in his tone. Derek stopped his blubbering immediately - even in his hazy state, he did as he was told and tried to calm down as much as he possibly could. When Hotch was sure he had his attention, he continued on, “ _What happened_?”

And oh, how Derek wished he had an answer for that golden question.

* * *

_I’m sending a raven_   
_with blood on its wings_   
_hoping it reaches you in time_   
_and you know what it means_

_cause out here in the darkness_   
_and out of the light_   
_if you get to me too late_   
_just know that I tried_

Lyrics from “Far From Home” -Sam Tinnesz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 2/20/21


	4. IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Birthday update! Thank you all for your support! I always appreciate comments and kudos :)

_Will you breathe through me?_  
 _And calm the storm inside_  
 _Just breathe through me_  
 _We'll keep the fires alight  
  
_ Lyrics from “I Hold You” -The Clann

* * *

“Hotch, I can’t just sit here,” Derek complained from where he sat on the edge of his hospital bed. He had a mild concussion, but since he had been unconscious for a short period of time, hospital staff insisted on him staying overnight just for observation. And Derek was having none of that. He couldn’t sit here, not while Spencer was gone somewhere, most likely in the hands of their unsub and suffering unimaginable pain - and they knew what their unsub did to his victims. That only scared Derek more, especially since he disposed of his victims within forty-eight to seventy-two hours of abducting them. “The unsub has Reid, and we have absolutely _nothing_ on this guy!” He shouted, growing more and more frustrated and scared for his baby.

“Morgan, if we want to find Reid, I need you to keep your head,” Hotch instructed sharply, looking over towards the door as Rossi entered the room.

“Prentiss is doing okay. A few fractured ribs from the impact and a concussion,” he informed the other two agents, and Derek exhaled a soft breath of relief that at least Prentiss wasn’t hurt too badly. But Reid?… They had no idea how badly he was injured. He could be dying right now for all they knew, and there was absolutely nothing they could do about.

“Good. Does JJ have any information on the other car in the accident?” Hotch asked, and as if she heard her name, JJ stepped into the room with a grim expression on her face. All acknowledged her with hopeful expressions, but all she could offer was a heavy frown.

“The car was reported stolen from a car lot about five hours ago. No plates, no registration. The body of Blake Deters was found in the trunk,” she reported, looking at the three alpha males, her worry clear.

“He was probably on his way to dump the body,” Morgan muttered lowly.

“How are we going to find Spence?…” JJ asked in a breathy voice, flashbacks of Tobias Hankel coming back to them all. Morgan whipped out his phone, dialing Garcia and putting her on speaker. She picked up on the first ring.

“Derek, honey, what’s going on? Hotch told me about the accident and Spence, _please_ tell me what I can do to get our baby home safe,” she begged, tears evident in her voice from the wavering of her words and occasionally sniffles. Derek knew exactly how she felt, and in fact, he felt more hopeless than she did.

“I need you to look into everyone that worked at that car lot and had a connection to the university the three men attended. He was ready to steal that car and he had been for a while. He could have picked any random car on the street, but instead he chose that one,” Morgan said, and Garcia hummed her response while the rapid sound of typing filtered through the phone. Hotch kept that ever permanent glare in his eyes, mouth set in a frown, but the slight tension in his brows made it obvious that was worried - their youngest teammate's life was at risk.

“Okay, so one of the mechanics that works at the lot has a criminal record. Battery, assault and solicitation. There’s also a salesman who works there that has a similar record, minus the solicitation. But neither of them have any connection to the college. Sorry, baby,” Garcia said, and Morgan sighed heavily, running a hand over his head.

“How about any prospective car buyers? For that car specifically?” Rossi asked instead.

“It’s going to take me a bit to figure that out since there isn’t any sort of database for people who _almost_ bought a car. I’ll get back to you,” she said and proceeded hang up right after without giving any one a change to respond. Morgan nearly groaned in frustration, shaking his head and trying to rid himself of the pounding in his brain. His eyes were beginning to hurt too, even though the lights were dimmed down pretty low. Hotch must have caught sight of this, because he reached over and turned the lights off entirely.

“Morgan, you need to rest. If you strain yourself you could make it worse,” he advised.

“Hotch, I can’t, that’s my _life partner_ out there. I-I can’t just sit here, he needs us… He needs _me_ ,” he said desperately, unable to help the tears that welled up in his dark eyes. JJ looked a bit sympathetic, and tears of her own were building up while Rossi just sighed. It was impossible to describe the love he had for Reid. If two impossibly far away stars suddenly collided within the vast universe and became one red supergiant, that would only summarize a _part_ of their bond. It was more than just physical attraction. Derek knew Spencer inside and out, had learned some of the most intimate parts of Reid simply because Reid trusted him. His trust was a fragile thing, but it was special and Derek would never betray that trust. And Reid was trusting him right now to save him, and he couldn’t betray that.

“Kid, you can’t do anything if you aren’t thinking straight,” Rossi said almost exasperated, thick brows pinched together. It was obvious that Morgan was worried, but he was pretty much out of the game for now. Until he was cleared to leave and return to field work, they couldn’t risk an injured agent running around and letting his emotions determine his actions.

“I at least have to _try_ ,” Morgan said with a pleading expression.

“No,” Hotch said simply, arms crossing over his chest as if to emphasize his denial. “You’re going to stay here. Rossi, JJ and I are going to return to the precinct and deliver the profile.”

“Hotch, please, I—“ Derek tried, desperate to rejoin the case.

“Derek, I said no,” Hotch said with force this time. Derek didn’t have to like it, and Hotch honestly didn’t care if he did or not. They couldn’t risk the lives of others or Reid’s life for that matter by placing an agent who wasn’t thinking straight into the field. That was how people got killed, and Hotch wasn’t about to let that happen.Morgan seemed to shrink back a bit, but he never responded. Hotch, Rossi, and JJ headed out to leave, and he received one last sympathetic look from the blonde before he was alone.

Damn, that was a terrible feeling.

* * *

Spencer wasn’t entirely sure how long he was alone. All he knew was that his sense of time was distorted, his head was throbbing, the entire right side of his body sore from the accident, and now the pain between his legs served as a constant reminder of what had happened to him. He had been violated in one of the most obscene ways possible, yet even now, the adrenaline was keeping him focused on Derek and how he was going to get out of here. Even with the concussion he was sure he had, his mind continuously ran a mile a minute trying to come up with ways to escape, get the upper hand, or even contact his team. He was less focused on the pain and more focused on getting out of this situation.

But God, was it _cold_.

Based on the partial profile they had developed before he was abducted, they knew this guy was a homosexual male who was killing surrogates for a man who possibly rejected him or wronged him in some way. All of the victims had attended the same university and even took the same class on male homosexuality, so he was either a teacher of some sort, another student, or potentially even a counselor or worked in administration. Simply, he was connected to academia in someway and had ties with this particular university, which shouldn’t have been too hard to narrow down. Except he didn’t have a computer or Garcia to ask for help, so he was on his own this time.

God, he wanted to go home. Every subtle shift of his body caused pain to flair up in his rear, and he knew that the discomfort wasn’t going to go away for quite some time, at least not until he got out of here. He had a feeling that it wouldn’t be just one time, especially since their unsub kept his victims for several days before killing them and disposing of the bodies. He could see himself now from a bird's eye view; splayed out in the Alaskan wilderness, a layer of snow covering his frozen, naked body until his skin was paper thin and his bones brittled. Until decomposition set in and disfigured him past the point of identification. Yet still, he hoped Derek would be able recognize his decrepit form.

Some time later, the familiar sound of the stairs creaking sent an undeniable shiver of fear up his spine, and the involuntary movement caused pain to flare up in his already aching body. He whimpered and tried to scamper backwards, but a gentle shushing noise stopped him and he stilled, completely motionless since he didn’t know what was going to happen to him next.

“Here baby, let me help you sit up,” that familiar voice said calmingly like he were approaching an injured animal. Reid was silent and still, feeling those hands come to his body, and position him upwards into a semi-sitting position, his back leaning against a cold, concrete wall. Reid whimpered at the pain and hissed at the cold, his legs jerking outwards and away from the lingering tough against his thigh. The man hushed him once again, his hand remaining there while the other rose to his head, stroking his hair gently and occasionally stroking his face. Perhaps the blindfold was a blessing in disguise - at least he didn’t have to see the monster who was doing this to him.

“What do you want?” Spencer dared to ask, his teeth latching onto his bottom lip immediately thereafter as if he were expecting to be struck for speaking. But the unsub did no such thing, and instead, he heard the sound of a sigh, almost frustrated in nature as if they had talked about this before; as if it were common sense.

“I thought it was clear, baby. I love you,” the unsub confessed, and again, a shiver crawled on his bare skin like ivy, its vines damned near suffocating since that was the _last_ thing Spencer had been expecting to hear. Spencer was left speechless for several moments afterwards, and despite himself, the gentle petting of his hair was almost enough to put him to sleep. Almost. His tongue darted out to lick his lips, and he batted the sleep from his eyes with a flutter of his lashes against the blindfold before he spoke once more.

“I… I love you too,” he started, nervous but knowing he had no choice but to go along with this unless he wanted an untimely death. “But… I need to let my friends know where I am. They’re probably worried about me,” Spencer said, and the unsub didn't respond, but his hand stilled atop his head and he didn’t move for quite some time. Instead, he sighed once more and Spencer could feel movement beside him as well as the sound of rustling.

“Babe, you know that’s not a good idea. They could take you away from me again,” he said almost sadly, and believe it or not, Spencer felt a twinge of remorse within him. He was a surrogate, most likely for someone who lost a lover, and with the timeline of the murders, it had to be fairly recent. But Spencer just took a deep breathe and cursed himself for the slight shakiness in his voice.

“They won’t… They won’t, but I need to let them know that I’m okay. They might think something happened to me if I don’t talk to them,” he said, and the unsub made a noise of displeasure, clear not taking to that idea at all.

“You don’t need them anymore. You have me. I’m all you need now. Okay?” he said, his voice getting to be a bit more serious now while his hand in Spencer’s hair gripped onto his dark locks tightly. Spencer hissed at the discomfort, and sensing his pain, the unsub let go almost immediately, stroking his bare shoulder instead.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he mumbled. Spencer nearly cried out at that, because so far, his entire existence was a world of pain. But he didn’t. He couldn’t anger this unsub, that was clear, otherwise he would get aggressive and violent.

“I know you didn’t. Will you at least… think about it?” Reid tried in a softer voice. The unsub said no more, and instead of communicating through words, he chose another way. Reid felt himself being laid forward on the mattress, splayed out on his stomach. Hands traveled down the ridges of his spine, over the curves of his shoulder blades, and he was desecrated once again.

He was beginning to doubt that Derek would even know him by the end of this. 

* * *

_“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.”_

-Norman Cousins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 2/20/21


	5. V

_And when the angel_  
_\- our angel, remember -_  
_put his hand_  
_on your heaving chest_

_and said_  
_there’s nothing left_

_nothing left of_  
_what made you_  
_you’re empty -_  
_was he correct?_

-f.m.

* * *

“Sir, I did as you asked and look into prospective car buyers who had connections with the university the victims attended and I found one - Mason Wright, twenty-eight, he filled out some paperwork on the car but never returned to buy it. He works as a teacher’s assistant and has been involved with the class that all of the victims took ever since he started there three years ago. He has a sealed juvie record but other than that, he looks like an upstanding citizen,” Garcia informed the trio, sounding a bit unsure since he didn’t exactly fit the profile of a rapist and serial killer. 

“Unseal his juvie record,” Dave requested, his arms crossing over his chest. He, Hotch and JJ were all in the conference room, fretting over how their group had downsized nearly in half over the course of several hours. It was getting pretty late too, and they only hoped that Spencer would be able to make it through the night. He was not really known for being physically fit, and instead relied solely on his mind. They placed their faith in that.

“It’s going to take some time… Also, his primary listed address is an apartment connected to the university, but he also owns a cabin located in - you guessed it - the Alaskan wilderness,” she said. They all glanced towards each other once again, a new expression of determination on their faces.

“What’s the address, Garcia?” Hotch asked, the three of them already heading out the conference room to leave the precinct. Garcia gave it to them after a bit of clacking on her keys, but they stopped just outside, all seeming to share one similar thought.

“Morgan needs to be there,” JJ said, despite their unit chief’s refusal of it earlier, “He needs to. Reid deserves that much.”

“JJ…” Hotch started.

“No, Aaron, she’s right. Reid is going to be scared and fragile — he needs someone there he trusts,” Rossi interjected.

“He trusts us,” Hotch tried to reason, but JJ was adamant.

“Come on, Hotch… Derek and he… They live and _breathe_ each other,” JJ insisted. Hotch still looked a bit unsure, but he could tell he wasn’t going to win. His sharp eyes set on JJ, and he nodded once.

“Fine. But make sure he knows what’s at stake here. We need Wright alive,” he said, and JJ swallowed somewhat nervously before nodding on her own and heading off to the second SUV whileHotch and Rossi got in the first one.

“See you there,” Dave said rather ominously before they went their separate ways.

* * *

Derek felt like he’d been hit by a car. The ache in his head never did go away, not even with the pain killers he was being given. He was hit by a wave of exhaustion when he had been left alone, but since he was still within the certain time frame after a concussion in which he wasn’t allowed to go to sleep, he was stuck sitting in his hospital bed, his legs crossed at the ankles while he watched Days of Our Lives on the television, but even that was frowned upon with a concussion. In reality, he wasn’t really watching it, and it served more as background noise for the rest of his jumbled thoughts. He had been worried about Reid in the past, and with their line of work, that was to be expected. But Tobias Hankel didn’t even compare to this, because at least then, he could _see_ his lover.

But this was just downright cruel. He had no interaction with Reid, he couldn’t see him to at least confirm he was _alive_. They still had time though… This unsub kept his victims for at least forty-eight hours, but considering Reid was an FBI agent, that cut his survival time down considerably. Damn, this wasn't looking good for him…

Had he been… _assaulted_?

That was all Derek could think about, his baby violated and hurt, probably screaming his name because he believed that Derek would be there at the end of it all to save him and pull him from the wreckage. Derek felt a cold shiver run up his spine at that visual; His Spencer, legs forced apart, hands bound together, his pretty lips parting for screams that didn’t deserve to feel the vibration of his vocal cords, that had no right existing, even as the slightest of sound waves. Spencer, in pain and _alone_ , with no concept of time or existence, and simply _existing_ because he believed there would be an end to it all eventually. Eventually.

He was so lost in thought he hardly heard the gentle wrap of knuckles against the door, and it took him a few moments to process JJ’s presence. When he did though, he sat up straight and ignored the sudden sense of vertigo offsetting his balance.

“Did you find Reid?” He asked immediately, and JJ’s expression didn’t falter even slightly as she spoke.

“We have a possible address,” she informed, and within an instant, Morgan threw his legs over the side of the bed and was up, the cold hospital tiling cold against his feet, even with socks on.

“You can’t stop me from coming,” Morgan said sharply to JJ, his eyes burning like molten lava, a newfound determination urging him on. He would have to put up with the pounding in his skull for now, because Reid needed him more than anything and, knowing what their unsub did to his victims, Spencer was going to need Derek. But still, that lingering thought remained in his head, that his lover was already dead, and it filled him with a sense of dread in such a larger capacity than ever before. Tobias had been one monster, but this unsub was a whole new animal.

“I wasn’t going to,” JJ said, much to Morgan’s surprise, “I came to pick you up, Hotch and Rossi are waiting for us.”

Morgan didn’t wait a second longer. He took the IV out of his arm without calling for a nurse and unhooked himself from the rest of the machines as well. He forced his boots back on and slipped his leather jacket over his shoulders while following JJ out of the room. To a passing nurse, JJ briefly announced his leaving and she was left speechless and confused as the two FBI agents rushed out of the ER.

JJ speed dialed Hotch as they were climbing into the SUV, “Hotch we’re leaving now,” she said to him and Derek looked towards her with furrowed brows, wondering if they had made it to the address already. “Alright, see you there.” She hung up and began driving, flipping the lights and sirens on and speeding out of the hospital parking lot.

“They’re about fifteen minutes out, but they’re going to wait for us,” she said, and Morgan nodded, beginning to grow nervous. They sat in silence for the first five minutes, JJ’s eyes locked on the road while Morgan tried to ignore his headache.

“I just… If he hurt Reid, I…” Morgan swallowed, his throat tight and constricting. He was going to lose it if he found the unsub first.

“Derek,” JJ started, shaking her head and trying to ignore the burning sensation in her eyes, “We can’t think like that. Spence is going to be fine. He has to be, okay?”

“All he has to be is alive,” Derek answered sharply.

* * *

The second time, he didn’t even try to fight. He was motionless, as if catatonic, and his mind wandered elsewhere while he tried to focus on anything but the hot, sweaty body above him, ripping him apart at the seams and playing with the threads of his life like he were a doll. After their third time together - together, like they were a couple - Reid was simply _numb_ from the pain.

Like a new take on phantom limb syndrome, Spencer felt the constant ache inside even though the perpetrating extremity was no longer there.

He wanted to see Derek one last time before he died. He wanted to feel his arms around him and feel his lips against his own, as if kissing everything better would make the scars go away. He could feel his limbs begin to tremble from the cold, an irreversible chill setting in his naked chest and spreading across his skin. Believing he was dying, from the pain or the cold he wasn’t sure, he feared that the growing sense of internal freezing was his body shutting down and giving up on him. He didn’t know if his eyes were open anymore, because the blindfold filled his vision with constant darkness. He was afraid of the dark… Yet somehow the fear of dying was even more incapacitating in that moment.

It was cold.

The time seemed to drag on and on, whispering in his ears as a constant reminder. _Forty-eight hours… You have forty-eight hours until he kills you. You better think of something quick, genius Dr. Reid. Don’t let yourself fall asleep, you can’t waste what precious time you have left_. He hated how he heard those words in Derek’s voice, thrumming in his brain like a constant reminder of his impending death.

“Come on, baby,” he heard that sick yet unbearably sweet voice say somewhere in the space around him. He recognized the feel of arms lifting him up off of the stained mattress and carrying him up those stairs that continued to _creak_.

“It’s time to go home now, okay?”

Spencer didn’t know what that meant. He wondered if it was snowing outside.

_“I don’t tell you enough how beautiful you are, you know that?” Derek asked without hesitation, laying beside Spencer and idly circling his fingertips over his partner’s bare chest, still flushed pink from their lovemaking. Spencer’s head turned, that blush rejuvenated in his cheeks from the compliment. He smiled, raising Derek’s hand to his face and pressing his lips over his knuckles gently._

_“You don’t have to,” he said softly in response, his lips brushing over Derek’s fingers with every word spoken._

_“Yeah, I do,” Derek said simply, “because you forget sometimes, how beautiful you are._ All _of you.”_

_“Derek…”_

_“I love you, Spencer. More than anything. I need to say that more too.”_

Spencer felt the cold seep into his bones as he was gently laid down, sinking a few inches into a white pillow of cold and death. The blindfold was ripped from his eyes, taking strands of hair with it, and instead of black, he saw white. Gazing up into the frozen canopy of dead tree limbs and the occasional flutter of an evergreen, all he could see was the white sky above as it continued to torment him with endless clumps of snow.

_“Hey… Are you doing okay?” Derek asked him softly. They were on their way home from a case, all of them stuffed into the jet. It wasn’t really a difficult case for the rest of them, but Spencer was having a hard time. It had been a case involving drug addicts, heroin addicts specifically, and every time one of the local officers or even a member of his own team referred to them as junkies or dope-heads, (‘worthless members of society,’ as one officer had said), he couldn't help the way he would flinch or inwardly recoil._

_Worthless…_

_Spencer looked up at those words, unable to prevent the tears building up in his eyes, threatening to spill over his lower lids._

_“No,” he admitted weekly. Lying to Derek was pointless._

_“Talk to me,” Derek said immediately, holding his hand across the table. Nobody paid them any mind - the only one still awake was Hotch and he was too focused on paperwork on the other end of the jet to even concern himself with them._

_“I just… I don’t know… Is that all that I am?” He asked in a near whisper._

_“What, kid?” His lover asked, careful and patient._

_“I’m only a few weeks sober,” he said softly, “Am I… Is that what I am?_

_“Spencer…”_

_“A junkie? An addict? A ‘worthless member of society’? Will those labels ever go away?”_

_“Labels don’t matter. You’re so much more than that. It doesn’t matter what they say because you’re stronger_ _than any drug and you overcame it all on your own. You aren't an addict, Spencer, you’re a_ survivor _.”_

The sky was beginning to blur, and his body was so numbed by the cold that he could hardly even feel the layer of snow accumulating over his naked body. His breathing was beginning to get a bit shallower, and he could no longer feel his limbs. His blue lips were cracked from the cold, parted just slightly for raspy breaths. Dark eyes tried to follow every single snowflake on its ominous descent, and he wondered if the wetness on his cheeks were his tears or just the building snow.

Even survivors eventually died, just like the rest of humanity. In the end, they were all the same.

“Derek…” he heard himself whisper into the unknown, his breath a cloud above his lips, dispersing as soon as it had formed.

“Derek, please… Help me, please…”

_“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Spencer asked one day, ever a lover of philosophy. Derek regarded him with an expression mixed between confusion and amusement._

_“What?” Derek asked, raising a brow. A smile quirked the corners of Reid’s lips upwards._

_“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” He repeated, and was barely able to resist the giggle building up in his throat when Derek rolled his eyes but responded honestly nonetheless._

_“I would like to think it still does.”_

So did Spencer.

* * *

_And maybe it was with_  
_the ever falling snow_  
_where one breath meant more_  
_than any that came before,  
_  
_yet just like the others_  
_it would fade away_  
_until nothing was left_  
_but a white blanket_  
_of mangled futures_  
_and hopeless forevers_

“Evergreens” - MakaylaJade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 2/20/21


	6. VI

_“Do not go gentle into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of the light.”_

-Dylan Thomas

* * *

“Mason Wright, this is the FBI,” JJ shouted through the door, all guns drawn. Rossi and Hotch had gone around back and JJ and Morgan were at the front door. It was a small, single story cabin in the woods, about a half mile off the dirt road. They had nearly missed it, but it certainly didn’t help that the snow was falling heavier now than it had been before. They had medical on the way, but they couldn’t afford to wait any longer.

“Open up, Mason!” Derek called as well, and after a few seconds, he and JJ met each other’s gaze before moving into action. They both backed up, and Derek didn’t wait for further confirmation before he lunged forward, booted foot hitting the door’s sweet spot and kicking it in. They both moved inside, and the sound of the backdoor being kicked open soon followed their entry. The cabin was a single room space, a small kitchen and a sitting area with a fireplace. They all aimed at the eerily calm figure relaxing on an old couch in the sitting area, a mug of something, most likely coffee, held in his grasp.

“Mason Wright, stand up very slowly and keep your hands visible at all times,” Rossi instructed, but Mason didn’t move at all and instead, acknowledged his unexpected guests with a somewhat saddened smile. Morgan was immediately put off by this, and his expression twisted into one of confusion and anger.

“Get up, Mason,” Morgan hissed, but again, he gave them nothing.

Hotch noticed the disheveled rug splayed across the wooden floorboards in front of the couch, and he nudged it aside with his foot to uncover a hatch. He shared a look with Morgan before pulling the string upwards to reveal an old set of steep, wooden ladder stairs. He flicked his flashlight on and took a few steps down into the space, Morgan remaining at the top, afraid of what he might see should he follow. But several seconds later, Hotch came back into view at the bottom of the stairs, his flashlight casting a white glow over his stern features, yet it was impossible to miss the ever growing concern building up.

And with that, he said the most fear striking words that Morgan had ever heard, “He’s not here.”

Morgan turned on Mason who was still sat as casually as before, and he looked up with that same sad smile on his lips before taking a sip of his coffee. “Where is he?” Morgan asked, his voice dangerously low as he approached the man with heavy steps and forced him up by the front of his coat which was still covered in a dust of snow, the mug effectively falling from Mason’s hands and shattering on the ground, coffee splattering like blood on the floorboards. “What the fuck did you to do him?” He shouted and the man shook his head, almost looking a bit confused now, that smile long gone and replaced with a heavy frown.

“I _loved_ him,” Mason tried to reason, blue eyes incredulously wide in response to what the man was implying. However, that fell away when he seemed to remember something, and he instead wore an expression of pure sorrow. “But… he had to go home.”

Morgan let go of the man with an expression of pure horror, “You dumped him already,” he said in a whispered realization, and the man nodded solemnly while Rossi pulled him aside and began to snap a pair of cuffs around his wrists.

“Where?” Hotch asked then, fierce, dark eyes boring holes directly through Mason’s skull. “Where is Spencer?” Mason didn’t respond for several seconds, looking like on the verge of a breakdown with the constant shaking of his head and occasionally stutter of incoherent words. But eventually, he looked up, all of his attention on Morgan.

“He’s… He's in the woods, that way,” he said softly, bobbing his head forward through the eastern-most wall of the cabin, “I’m sorry… He had to go home… He’s probably made it there by now.”

Morgan didn’t wait another second. He bolted from the cabin and ran through the ever falling snow, JJ and Hotch close behind.

* * *

Even through the overwhelming cold, the constant ache inside, the pounding in his head, and the lack of feeling in his extremities, Spencer managed to shift himself in the snow onto his front, crying out at the sharp throbbing his movement seemed to awaken in his backside. He panted out in heavy breaths, gasping and whimpering with every sudden motion and stilling for just a few seconds to catch his breath.

He was going to die out here…

He was approaching the moderate stage of hypothermia; Gone were the initial tremors and simple feelings of coldness, and instead he felt himself flipping in and out of consciousness, his limbs beginning to disobey him as he lost some control over his basic motor control and coordination, and if his eyes were still working correctly, he could see that his fingertips were beginning to look more blue than white, and if his fingers were like that, he knew his lips must be too. The incredibly painful burning sensation mixed with a numbness in his extremities was overwhelming. Blisters were already beginning to form around his knuckles, and he couldn’t help but let out a frustrated, pained cry. He couldn’t outsmart his way out of frozen extremities.

His stiffening digits clawed down into the snow, catching the hard, frozen ground and using it as leverage to pull himself forward in an attempt to sit himself up. But his body was giving up on him, it seemed, and again he cried out as he jerked his upper body upwards so that he could maneuver forward in the direction of a nearby tree trunk. If he could just get to it, he could hopefully sit himself up and potentially even stand. But it turned out, the aftermaths of rape, hypothermia, and a severe concussion did not blend well together and it was getting harder and harder to keep his eyes open and focused.

He had never felt so helpless in all his life. At least with Tobias, he had the ability to _attempt_ to talk his way out of it. His fingers were digging into the frozen ground, and he gritted his teeth when he found that he had no strength left to even attempt to move again. He was hardly aware of the heart-wrenching sobs spilling past his lips like poison, because each sob resulted in a heave for precious oxygen that his body was slowly losing the desire to inhale. He had heard once that hypothermia was a rather pleasant way to die, since his body would quite literally shut down, but it was anything but pleasant. He was in endless agony, but he couldn’t allow himself to just give up. Even though his slowing heart rate was betraying him, he refused to let himself go; not until he saw Derek one last time.

People only cry for help if they believe there was help to cry for.

So, with a deep breath taken out of pure desperation, Spencer screamed out as loudly as his dying body would let him, Derek’s name vaporizing above his lips as one final cloud of white.

* * *

Derek continued on until he could feel a burning in his legs, the snow getting more and more difficult to trudge through while the snow fell heavier, transforming into a blizzard before his eyes. It was getting dark out too, the sun slowly setting along the horizon. He glanced behind him, seeing JJ and Hotch closely following. His and Spencer's relationship had once been a poorly concealed secret before all of this began, but now, he didn’t care if they both ended up losing their jobs. Of course, just because they considered it a secret didn’t mean that their team didn’t _know_. It was quite obvious, truthfully, which was why no one acted surprised when Morgan nearly exploded in the hospital and addressed Reid as his life partner. But so long as Hotch pretended not to know anything of it, their jobs weren’t at risk.

But quite frankly, Morgan couldn't care less if they both ended up fired after this. All that mattered right now was finding Reid and getting him to safety. He could imagine how scared his baby was, all alone and taken advantage of by a psychotic unsub who treated him as a surrogate for the object of his true feelings. Reid wasn’t weak by any means, but he was one of the less physically fit members of their team, and often opted to stay at the police stations and avoid takedowns. (Of course he did it sometimes, and was not bad at it, but they all knew he preferred to stay in the realm of safety.) Regardless, that didn’t make him any less valuable than the rest of their team. He was a rightful member of the BAU and belonged there just as much as any of them did, but Morgan was seriously beginning to doubt his own ability at keeping his lover safe.

“Spencer!” He called out into the winter air, the snow slowing them all down considerably, and shortly after his own call, he heard JJ shout out the young doctor’s name as well, “Reid!”

“I can’t see anything,” he heard Hotch mutter behind him, and it was true that the heavily falling snow was getting difficult to see through, not to mention the fact that it was quickly becoming black outside. The roar of the wind in their ears was deafening, but Morgan wasn’t giving up on Spencer - how could he ever?

“Please, Spencer… I know you’re out here somewhere…” Morgan said under his breath, and as if the God he didn’t believe in heard his prayers, a form half buried in the snow came into his sight. About five meters in front of him, Spencer’s body was facedown, his mess of curls unmistakable against the white ground. One hand was outstretched in their direction, yet still, Derek couldn’t ignore the fleeting thought of Reid dying in the blistering cold and rising as a snow angel.

“Oh my god…” Morgan heard JJ say, but he didn’t waste any time in rushing forward and quickly discarding his own coat in favor of wrapping it around Reid’s body, gathering him carefully in his arms and clutching him against his chest. He was too still, too cold, and Morgan felt a wetness streak down his cheek as he finally caught sight of Spencer’s beautifully frozen face. He was paler than normal, his skin nearly as white as the snow and his lips a pale blue. Frozen wetness clung to his eyelashes like icicles where they curled against his high cheekbones and ice clung to the fine hair of his brows.

Oh, but the gentle puff of air that passed his blue lips was the most precious thing Morgan had ever had the joy to witness. “He’s still alive,” he whispered in relief, holding the boy against his body. He pressed his nose into the mess of hair, breathing in the scent of his partner. He nearly sobbed when his body twitched in his grasp, but he did not let go and instead rose steadily to his feet, Reid cradled to his front with his arms tucked between their chests. One of Morgan’s arms looped under his backside, holding him up by the back of his thighs while his other was firmly planted against the small of his back, long legs hanging on either side. Spencer’s upper body was slumped forward against Derek’s, his cheek resting against his shoulder.

Once he was secure in his arms, Derek looked back to Hotch and JJ who both wore relieved expressions, but Hotch didn’t let it deter him from keeping control of the situation. “We need to get back to the cabin. We can’t stay out in this and he certainly can’t.” Morgan couldn’t agree more.

They trudged their way back to the cabin, no longer able to run but maintaining a quick pace in order to get Reid somewhere warm. About halfway back, the body in arms jerked and a muffled noise of pain vibrated against his neck. Derek nearly stopped in his surprise, at the voice that murmured in a mere whisper somewhere just below his ear. “Derek?...” Spencer’s voice was the sweetest relief that Morgan had ever heard, and he squeezed him close and stopped for just a second to make sure the coat was wrapped around the majority of his torso.

“I’m right here, baby, I’ve got you,” he said in response, and another muffled hum warmed his throat. Derek’s tongue swiped across his lips as he resisted the urge to cry. He couldn’t, not now. He had to get Spencer to safety before he even began to think about himself. “You’re gonna be alright, okay? Say my name again, Spencer, and keep those pretty eyes open for me.”

His name was muffled against his shoulder this time, but he knew he had heard it right, and he squeezed Reid against his chest tighter.

“I can see the cabin up ahead!” Hotch called out above the howling winds. Once there, Hotch flung the door open, a gust nearly ripping it off of its hinges, and they all scrambled inside. Rossi was inside, sitting on the sofa with his phone to his ear, but Mason was nowhere to be seen. Seeing them enter, he quickly stood up and put the phone on speaker - it had to be Garcia.

“Sheriff Hayes came by with a couple of other officers. They took Wright to the station, but as soon as they left, the blizzard kicked in. I should have went with them, since we’re not going to be able to get out of here any time soon. Hayes said the ambulance crashed on the way here, so we’re on our own until the morning,” Rossi informed them with a grim expression, immediately catching sight of their youngest teammate in Morgan’s arms. Nobody said a word to him, and instead, Morgan carefully laid him down on the couch.

Spencer’s eyes fluttered open at the loss of warmth, and he whimpered miserably. Derek was instantly kneeling beside him, hushing him and stroking his face while JJ ripped a blanket off of the cot and draped it over him. “Derek,” he moaned, some of the color returning to his cheeks and lips. But Morgan winced at the sight of the blisters on his fingers and toes.

“Hush, pretty boy, I’m right here. We’re gonna warm you up and you’ll be feeling better in no time,” He said, taking Spencer’s hands and wrapping his own around them once he had removed his gloves, keeping his touch gentle so as not to disturb any of the recently formed blisters. Spencer’s dark eyes looked up at him and he sniffled, a shiver wracking his frame.

“Hurts…” he murmured softly, and Derek hushed him gently once more, pressing his lips over Spencer’s knuckles several times and exhaling warm air against the cold skin. He looked up at his lover, and within him, he felt such relief yet also a lingering fear that perhaps Reid would not be all right by the end of this. The fact that Spencer was breathing so shallowly was somewhat concerning, but as long as he _was_ breathing, he supposed he could live with it for now. He was so weak in this very moment, those half lidded eyes never straying from his face. Spencer had never given up on him, not once did he doubt Derek’s ability to rescue him. So it was only right for Derek to return the favor. He made a promise in that very moment, his lips against Spencer’s frostbitten fingers, to get him through this, no matter what it took.

And he would never break that promise.

* * *

_I clutched my life_   
_And wished it kept_   
_My dearest love, I'm not done yet_

_How many years_   
_I know I'll bear_   
_I found something in the woods somewhere_

Lyrics from “In the Woods Somewhere” -Hozier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 2/20/21


	7. VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took me a bit longer than I expected, and I'm still not entirely happy with it, but I hope you all enjoy
> 
> Warning for discussion of rape.

_“He is more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”_

-Emily Bronte

* * *

After some brief discussion reminding each other how to perform field medicine on frostbite (because it was such an uncommon injury in their line of work), the group got to work. JJ offered to get some water boiling and Hotch went about looking for towels and more blankets so that they could start the rewarming process with Reid’s frozen limbs. Rossi worked on getting a fire started in the small fireplace, struggling a bit considering the lighter on top of the brickwork was nearly out of fuel. Morgan stayed by Reid’s side, giving his feet the same attention he gave to his hands, wrapping them up with his own warm hands so that the warmth would pass skin to skin. Spencer was conscious but a little dazed from his persistent concussion, but he was semi-responsive and at least following Derek’s gentle instruction to keep his eyes open.

“Spencer, I need you to tell me what happened,” Derek asked him softly, massaging his lover’s bony ankles to hopefully get the blood flowing into his frozen toes, the circulation a much needed part of frostbite recovery. Spencer hummed halfheartedly, closing his eyes briefly and shaking his head. Reid knew it was foolish to resist telling Derek, because sooner or later he would make the discovery on his own. They had all known their unsub’s M.O. It was no secret what he did to his victims. “Please, baby? I want to be able to help you.”

Spencer gave no verbal response, but his eyes fluttered open again as he met those molten eyes gazing down at him with a plethora of emotions, ranging from unconditional love to heart-wrenching despair.

“I know you have a concussion and frostbite. But Spencer, did he… Did he… _violate_ you?” He asked, careful to avoid dropping the ‘r’ word so as to not upset his partner. He didn’t want Spencer to feel like he had been victimized, because the last thing he needed right now was stress. Spencer didn’t respond, but the wetness building up on his bottom lash line was almost a dead giveaway. But Derek needed to hear Spencer say it for himself. It took about a minute for him to do anything other than stare at him with tears steadily flowing down his cheeks, but eventually, he swallowed and bobbed his head in a jerky nod.

“Mm… Mhmm,” Spencer hummed out through the beginning of his sniffling, his bottom lip trembling as he struggled to contain himself. “It hurt… He just… I didn’t want it, but I-I didn’t have a choice… He made me…” Morgan rubbed a hand up over his shin and around to his calf, gentle with his strokes and making sure not to hurt him anymore.

“I know, I know… Can I see, Spence?” He asked him softly, glancing up to see Rossi sparing a glance in their direction only to go back to the fire situation. Spencer looked unsure, but when Morgan bowed his head and pressed his lips to the top of his foot, he nodded slowly, remaining still. Derek rubbed his calf one more time before sliding up closer to Reid’s torso.

“I need to move you so that I can see, okay?” Morgan asked quietly, and Spencer nodded once more. He was still naked beneath the blanket, and he felt nervous to be so exposed like he was. Derek, as gentle as could be, lifted Spencer’s hips so that he was laying somewhat catty-corner on the couch with his body leaning up into the corner of the cushions. Derek kept the blanket over Spencer’s bare torso while he fitted himself between his lover legs which trembled terribly. He didn’t push them apart forcefully,and he kept his eyes on Spencer’s face while his hands slid between his thighs to carefully guide them apart. Tears were falling freely now, and Derek hated to admit that he could barely keep his own emotions intact, especially after what he saw between Reid’s legs.

He was filled with such an anger that he had never felt before in his life, that someone dared to touch his lover in such a way and hurt him so badly. He was surprised he hadn’t noticed the dried blood before, but at the time he was more concerned with the fact that his lover was alive over anything. Spencer’s lithe body trembled horrifically, and a little whimper in his throat forced Derek to look further. All he saw was red; painted across his thighs in messy, dried splatters and splashing across his backside like a sick work of art. The tears were visible, and Derek felt like he met be sick 

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Reid murmured, and Morgan immediately looked up at the sound of his voice. Spencer’s wilted expression was devastating. It was like gazing upon the prettiest of flowers and watching as, oh so suddenly, it began to die and whither into a shell of its former self. Yet at the same time, it was a reminder of how strong Spencer was, to still be alive after everything that had happened - to be alive after being left for dead… A chill of utmost disgust and horror climbed his vertebrae as graphic imagery of Spencer’s abuse played through his head, and he realized how fortunate he was that he had found Spencer, and not a corpse. He couldn’t tell him just how afraid he had been.

“You’re so strong, baby,” Derek said instead with a heavy voice, swallowing thickly and meeting Spencer’s half lidded eyes, “I’m so proud of you… We’re going to get through this, I promise,” he assured him with a kiss to his hand while repositioning the blanket over his hips.

JJ came over with a bowl of hot water and Hotch soon followed with a few blankets and towels. He looked back and forth between them before glancing back towards Spencer, and without words, they seemed to understand: Mason had carried out his M.O. on Spencer, too.

“I can warm up his feet if you want to take his hands, Hotch,” JJ said, blue eyes flicking to Morgan. It was impossible to miss the wetness building up there, but she swallowed and stayed strong for the couple.

“Of course,” Hotch said immediately, soaking two hand towels in the water - one for each hand - and wringing them of water before wrapping them around Spencer’s frozen fingers. Spencer whimpered, a burning sensation tingling in his skin as the rewarming process began. JJ did the same to his feet, nearly sobbing at the sight of his purple and blue toes. Morgan, however, clearly had the most difficult role of all.

With a wet towel, he fitted himself between Spencer’s legs again, both Hotch and JJ looking away to protect his modesty while Derek cleaned up the blood and other fluids dried to his alabaster skin. Spencer whimpered at the slight discomfort, and when Derek wiped between his cheeks, a strangled cry passed his chapped lips. “Hurts…!” Derek instantly flinched back, apologizing profusely and hating to see the fresh wave of tears building up in Spencer’s eyes from the pain.

“I’m so sorry, baby, I know it hurts,” he said in a somewhat shaky voice, exhaling slowly and finishing up the cleaning since the last thing Spencer needed was to get an infection. He could see the external tearing and swelling, and he couldn’t even imagine how badly he was injured internally. Spencer was small and petite as it was, so even when they became intimate with one another, Derek always had to take extra care and precaution to make sure he didn’t hurt his lover. But this… Wright didn’t take any precautions, that was obvious, and it made Morgan’s blood boil.

“I’m all done, Spence, you did so good,” Derek whispered, sitting up and tucking the blanket back around his hips and over his legs. He took another blanket that Hotch had found and laid it over him too. Rossi approached them, the fire going in the fireplace now. He cast a glance over Spencer, shaking his head and pursing his lips. He didn’t say anything, but his despair wasn’t hard to miss. Spencer murmured something intelligible and attempted to move himself, but Morgan quickly jumped up to position him on the couch more comfortably, fitting a pillow under his head. Spencer’s dark and slightly dazed eyes met his own, and Derek pressed a soft kiss to Spencer’s forehead.

“Get some rest, baby,” he said softly.

“I love you,” Spencer whispered just as soft in response, and Derek exhaled shakily, unable to help the tear that fell down his cheek.

“I love you too,” Derek breathed out, moving so that he could sit beside Spencer on the sofa. He wetted another towel in the warm water and brushed it over his nose and cheeks, swiping it across his lips. He kept this up until Spencer’s eyes began to drift, and when they did finally close, Derek leaned down and pressed a kiss to his forehead before standing up. Rossi, Hotch, and JJ all looked at him with expressions that demanded an explanation even though they had considered it possible they were really in a relationship, and with one final glance back towards Derek, he did just that, not sparing any little details into all of the reasons why their relationship was perfect.

It was difficult to talk about it with him laying right there, but he spoke no falsehood and didn’t avoid anything. Especially not with the questions that bombarded him. Penelope would have plenty of questions when they got back even though she basically knew already, but he didn’t expect the trio in front of him to have so many questions. This continued through most of the night, and while none of them really slept, it was definitely nice to see Spencer getting the rest he so desperately needed. When morning came, the blizzard had slowed into a gentle snowfall and now, there was nearly a foot of snow covering the ground. Luckily the roads had been treated enough to get them out of there, and as soon as those SUVs came barreling through the snow, they all breathed a sigh of relief. Spencer, still naked save for Morgan’s oversized coat and the blankets, was carried in his lover’s arms and laid down in the backseat of the SUV. Luckily, they had been able to rewarm his limbs so that necrosis would not be an issue, but they weren’t sure if he would have longterm issues from the injury. Derek prayed he wouldn’t, but even now, Spencer complained that his fingers and toes were numb.

Getting out of those woods was the most pleasant feeling in the world, and with Spencer’s head in his lap, those pretty eyes looking up at him like he was the entire world, Derek was sure that they would be okay. It would take time, but Spencer was strong and a force to be reckoned with, and after everything he had already been through, Derek was certain that nothing would be able to take that away from him. Derek had seen Spencer fall apart and put himself back together over and over again, and while he would be there every step of the way, he knew that Spencer was capable of doing it on his own. But why make it any harder than it had to be? Spencer deserved a sense of comfort and support right now, Derek would give him that wholeheartedly.

Their time at the hospital was a nightmare. Prentiss was recovered by the time of their arrival and Spencer was absolutely hysterical. He didn’t want these strangers to see him, to touch him, and while Morgan couldn’t entirely blame him, he needed help right now and these people could give him the proper care he needed. There was no point in performing a SAFE kit considering they knew who the perpetrator was, and that was a good thing considering Spencer didn't need anymore stress. In order to treat him, the doctor had to administer a local anesthesia to calm him down and numb the area, and the damage was a bit more extensive than Derek had realized. In total, Reid required six stitches internally and five externally from the tearing. Fortunately, his STI tests came back negative and although his HIV had also came back negative, he would have to get tested again in three months just to be certain.

But still, even though his test results for HIV came back negative, he would forever have HIM running through his veins.

His hands and feet would be okay, in the long run. After the blisters and swelling went away, they would most likely be sore for awhile and the doctor described the feeling as something similar to arthritis, and while the doctor offered to prescribe pain medication, both for his hands and the aftermath of his sexual assault, Spencer was quick to decline. It was inspiring to Derek, how even in his current state, Reid was determined to keep his sobriety.

Within six hours, they were ready to go home. Reid, comfortable in his own clothes, was a bit distant from him, more than he would have liked, but Derek understood completely. He needed his space, and after experiencing a sexual assault, most people didn’t want to be close to others. He was quiet the entire jet ride back, curled up on the sofa with his long legs tucked against his chest, a book positioned against his thighs. Morgan sat near him on the couch, but kept a comfortable amount of space between them so as to not make him feel closed in. He remembered that feeling well, the sense of not having any personal space, and the last thing he wanted was to make Spencer feel anymore unsafe or anxious.

When they finally made it back to Quantico, Derek quietly talked to Garcia about what had occurred and he hugged her briefly while she cried, but soon enough, she ushered him out and told him to focus on Reid, not her. He needed him more than she did right now, and besides, Reid didn’t have anyone else besides his mentally ill mother who most likely wouldn’t understand what had happened. He complied and after kissing her forehead and promising to keep her updated, he gathered Spencer and lead him out to the parking garage where they eventually got in his car and headed to the young doctor’s apartment. He needed to feel safe right now, and bringing him to an environment that was familiar and comfortable would be best.

They made it inside and Morgan helped Reid take off his jacket, leaning down and kissing his cheek, but Morgan was disheartened when his lover flinched away rather violently, sniffling and murmuring an embarrassed apology. Derek didn’t say anything, hanging up their coats on the coatrack near the door and following after Reid who wandered into the beautiful chaos that was his book-laden apartment. He sat himself down on his worn green couch as careful as he could, yet Derek didn’t miss the wince on his pretty face.

Morgan slowly sat down beside him, yet again giving him space and laying his hand out on the cushion between them. Reid glanced up towards his face, licked his lips, and slowly extended his own hand, his blistered fingers wrapped in loose bandages, and laid it overtop of Morgan’s, the slight trembling enough to break Derek’s heart. But he smiled and watched as Reid’s lips twitched just slightly before he looked away and withdrew his hand.

It was progress.

* * *

_If there is a light  
_ _You can't always see  
_ _And there is a world  
_ _We can't always be  
_ _If there is a dark  
_ _Now we shouldn't doubt_  
 _And there is a light  
_ _Don't let it go out_

Lyrics from “Song for Someone” -U2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 2/20/21


	8. VIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to follow me on Tumblr! - @makaylajadewrites

_I look at you and see all the ways a soul can bruise, and I wish I could sink my hands into your flesh and light lanterns along your spine so you know that there’s nothing but light when I see you._

Excerpt from “The Anatomy of Being” -Shinji Moon

* * *

“How’s he doing, Morgan?”

It had been three days since Spencer had come home, and in those three days, Spencer had come to realize just how fractured he actually was. He heard the voices outside of his room, hushed whispers, like it was some sort of secret that he had been raped. But it was no secret, and in truth, the entire Bureau probably knew by now that a BAU agent had been abducted and sexually assaulted.He knew they were just worried about him, but he couldn’t stand even the thought of being in their presence. He didn’t want to be around anybody, and even though Morgan was a bit of an exception, mainly because he didn’t have a choice in the matter, he still would have preferred to be alone, which was why he was isolating himself in his bedroom.

He couldn’t stand the thought of being around another human being right now, especially since the adrenaline and shock had left his system, and now he was left confused, hurting, and overall depressed. Derek would never hurt him, he was rational enough to understand that, but his body didn’t seem to understand that. Every subtle touch or even sudden move made in his direction by the larger man forced a full-body flinch, each as violent as the last.

Being raped had infected him. The blood running through his veins didn’t feel like his own. It was black mud, dirtying his insides and causing mold to grow in his bones until his skeleton was more mildew than calcium. His body was a parasite to his troubled psyche. It would just take and take from his mind, and never give anything back. It left him empty, disconnected, and numb. His fingers and toes tingled as his body continued to steal his sanity, and the longer he was left alone, the more he began to wonder what it would be like to float above his battered body; to stare and wonder if he really looked like that, so docile and infantile in death where his credentials and intelligence didn’t matter. Not even Spencer could outsmart death, and perhaps that was the most traumatizing of all.

“He’s been… struggling. He hasn’t been eating much, but at least he’ll drink his coffee if I bring it to him.” That was Derek; lovely, perfect Derek. The second night, he had screamed and thrown things at him and told him to go away, but Morgan didn’t budge. Even as a rather sad flower pot with a dead succulent inside had shattered at his feet, dry soil sinking into the carpet, Morgan didn’t flinch and looked more saddened than angry. Maybe that was what Spencer wanted - anger, yelling, _anything_ other than that constant and _disgusting_ look of pity on Morgan's face. But as he sat in a ball on the couch while Morgan silently vacuumed the mess he made, he realized he wasn’t going to get anything but sadness, and so he shut down completely.

Spencer curled his long legs close to himself, his hands running up and down his thighs to try and replace the feeling of his assailant’s hands on him. It was a constant movement, up and down, up and down. But all he could feel were phantom touches snaking down his ribcage, venom absorbed into his pale skin and calcifying his muscles until he was stone still. Unmoving and frozen in time like a malleable statute, Reid hadn’t reacted the second time he was raped. He had disassociated almost entirely, but those touches would forever plague and distort his sense of what it really meant to be alive.

Derek might understand. He had been a victim himself when he was just a child, yet Reid wondered if he knew what it was like to be on the brink of death, gasping for air yet somehow wishing at the same time that oxygen would evade him. He wondered if Derek also wished for death while he was being disassembled and left broken like a child’s discarded toy.

_“You know… Sometimes, after he…” Derek swallowed, his eyes closing while Spencer’s hand cupped his cheek, his thumb swiping across the ridge of his cheekbone, their bare legs a mess beneath the sheets. “We would go out to the lake and sit on the docks, and I wondered if I was just being selfish. He was… He gave me everything, really… I thought it was a sacrifice I had to make…”_

_“Derek, he exploited you and forced you into compliant victimization,” Spencer had said in a soft voice, almost like he was reminding him of his own trauma, “He didn’t do this. You did.”_

_“He made me who I am… He’s why I am the way I am, why I have the things that I have,” Derek insisted, his dark eyes filled with thousands of unshed tears._

_“You owe him nothing,” Spencer tried again._

_“I owe him_ everything _,” Derek had whispered like it were a secret._

_“You’re here because of the choices you made. He isn't responsible for that. You were strong enough to be a better person, a better man, because Carl Buford is_ nothing _,” Spencer whispered fiercely, pressing their lips together in a passionate kiss. When he pulled away, he cupped Derek’s face in both of his hands and forced their eyes to meet. “You are_ everything _and he is_ nothing _. He isn’t the reason why I’m here… You are, because you are an amazing person, Derek, and he has absolutely nothing to do with that.”_

_Their lips connected as if they were magnetized towards one another, unable to resist filling the space between them with their own bodies, and mingling together until they were skin to skin, flesh to flesh. They moved as one, hands locking together and legs twining beneath the sheets. Their hips were flush together, and Reid had soon found himself rolled onto his back with Morgan hovering above him. Slick fingers stretched him open and teased him tenderly, brushing over the base of his manhood and forcing whimpers from his kiss-swollen lips. Derek held him close and breached the surface, and the sensation of being connected with his lover in such an intimate way had been so emotionally fulfilling._

_His legs over Derek’s shoulders and his body practically folded in half, his lover rutted into him with at first a gentle pace to help him adjust, and after the first minute, set a quick, passionate rhythm, their breath mingling in the minuscule space between their lips. The combined sound of skin on skin and their pleasured voices was all Reid heard, and oh, how beautiful it had been._

_“I love you, Spencer, I love you,” Morgan had chanted, lips brushing over the leg thrown over his shoulder. He felt wetness reminiscent of tears against his calf, and although they both came to an emotionally fueled climax together, they never mentioned each other’s tears, because they didn’t have to. It made sense at the time, and the sense of perfection between them wasn’t something either of them dared to question._

Reid could remember how passionately they made love that night, and as desperately as he wished to feel love like that again, the very thought of having sex - with anyone - made him feel sick. And in fact, with a slight limp in his quickened pace, he darted into the bathroom and threw himself to the floor in front of the toilet, dispelling what little breakfast he ate that morning into the porcelain bowl. He cried to himself as he realized his life would never be the same, and the entire dynamic between himself and Derek had been disrupted, catastrophically so. He rested his forearms on the toilet seat, taking a deep breath and forcing himself to his feet, a pained grimace contorting his face. He gasped and nearly cried out at the explosion of painful pressure in his rear, and he briefly wondered if he had popped a stitch or two. Derek must have heard him, because a gentle knock on the door sounded soon after his retching session.

“Spence, baby, are you okay?” He heard his lover’s baritone voice, and he shivered slightly as the gentleness of it reminded him of his memory of their lovemaking. It made him feel dirty all over again, and he wanted nothing more than to scrub his skin until the shame and disgust washed away.

“Fine,” he gritted out, standing on shaky knees and relocating his hands to the edge of the sink counter, exhaling slowly and hearing as the door which he hadn’t had a chance to lock opened up beside him. He looked over with a heavy frown, and he suddenly felt the desire to shrivel into himself until he disappeared from sight.

“Are you alright?” The was a loaded question if he ever heard one. The young doctor just sighed and shrugged, forcing himself to stand upright instead of hunched over the bathroom sink.

“Yeah, I just… am not feeling well. My stomach was upset,” he said, quick to reach over and flush the evidence away so that his partner didn’t have to see just how weak he was. He felt like he was a nuisance to Derek in his fragile state. He wanted to run and hide from the shame and the pain, yet simultaneously he had the desire to bury himself in Derek’s chest and never leave. Derek didn’t deserve this; he deserved someone so much stronger, someone so much more capable of overcoming a trauma like the one Spencer had suffered. But he feared he would be trapped in an endless loop of nightmares and terror without ever fully being able to escape.

“Let’s lay down, hm?” Morgan suggested warmly, and as guilty as Reid felt for abusing his overly abundant kindness, he followed along dumbly. They lay in bed together with a comfortable amount of space between them, both a little weary of human contact with everything that had happened. They were able to look at each other though, and as hesitant as he was, Spencer was at least able to hold Morgan’s hand in the space between them.

“Garcia and JJ stopped over to check on you. Emily, Hotch, and Rossi are probably going to come by after work,” Morgan informed.

“I know. I could hear them,” he murmured softly, and Morgan sighed, squeezing his hand in an attempt to offer comfort. But Reid was quick to withdraw his hand, and he held it close to his chest along with his other hand.

“Garcia brought one of her baskets over. Lots of sugary candies and baked goods. JJ bought a weighted blanket for you too, said it comforts her.” Spencer had avoided touching other people before this, and while Morgan had been an exception for quite some time, it was appropriate to assume he had isolated himself from human contact for quite some time after his trauma. And nobody was going to blame him for that.

“That was really sweet of them,” Spencer murmured softly.

“It was,” Morgan agreed.

A moment of silence passed between them, not necessarily an uncomfortable one, but within it were so many unspoken words, unasked questions, and avoided emotions that neither man was good at portraying. They looked at each other for awhile longer in the silence, and Spencer contemplated what it would mean if he could never have sexual intercourse again. Derek Morgan was a living sex symbol, and he radiated sexual energy like a Greek god. Like Eros himself, Derek loved sex and everything related to it. He had said once that sex with Reid was like making love to an angel. He wondered how faithful he would remain to that angel if he knew Spencer was afraid to have sex again and the idea very nearly sent him into a panic attack.

“What are you thinking about?” Derek’s voice broke across his subconscious, and it was only then that Spencer felt the wetness in his eyes. He batted his lashes several times to try and rid them away but only succeeded in letting one track its way over the bridge of his nose and down the opposite cheek.

“Us,” he confessed.

“What about us?” His lover murmured the question quietly

“I just… I don’t want you to feel like you have to stay by my side. You deserve to be happy… loved… What if I can’t give you that like before?” Spencer dared to say in a breathy whisper.

“Spencer… Being by your side is what makes me happy. I would never give that up,” Derek countered with a small, sad smile. Spencer felt more tears escape his eyes and drip down, soaking into his pillow.

“What if I’m not able to give you physical intimacy again?” He asked, his voice breaking on every other word as he fought the urge to just sob.

“That doesn’t matter,” Derek responded without missing a beat. Spencer sighed in frustration, dragging his palms across his eyes and feeling his bottom lip tremble. But Derek wasn’t finished. “What we have is so much more than physical intimacy, Spence.”

“God, you just… You don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve you,” Spencer sobbed, unable to keep his crying at bay any longer.

Derek sighed, his dark eyes filling with tears of his own. “Spencer, it isn’t about deserving one another. It’s about loving each other, and I love you more than you’re big, beautiful brain will ever be able to comprehend.” Spencer chuckled through his sobs, his trembling hands reaching across the bed for Derek’s. Derek immediately grabbed them without hesitation, raising them to press kisses across every knuckle before their fingers laced together as if it were as natural as the air they breathed.

“I love you,” Spencer breathed through his stream of tears. “I don’t know what I’m going to do when you decide you can’t handle me anymore.”

“You don’t have to worry about that, because it’s never going to happen,” Derek said.

“Promise?” Spencer asked, and for a moment, Derek was reminded of just how young his lover was, relying on promises to fulfill his own sense of gratification. Maybe someday Derek would be able to convince him that he deserved so much more.

“With every fiber of my being, Spencer.”

* * *

_I've waited a hundred years  
_ _But I'd wait a million more for you  
_ _Nothing prepared me for  
_ _What the privilege of being yours would do_  
 _If I had only felt the warmth within your touch  
_ _If I had only seen how you smile when you blush  
_ _Or how you curl your lip when you concentrate enough  
_ _Well I would have known_  
 _What I was living for all along  
_ _What I've been living for_

Lyrics from “Turning Page” -Sleeping At Last

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 2/20/21


	9. IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That took a bit longer than expected since I just recently uploaded a new part to the Bria Monique Series, but after a week, here it is!

_and when you were left rotting_   
_in the remains of what once was_   
_were you really alone_   
_or was your body a willing partner_   
_in the demise of your mind?_

-MakaylaJade

* * *

“You know I never even saw his face,” Spencer said out of the blue one day.

A few months had passed, and while Spencer was working on desk duty, he was still having some issues with his mental health, no matter how desperately he tried to deny it. He was waking up almost every night with nightmares and he struggled during the day with typical interactions. Almost every male figure was an enemy besides Derek, and though he had an aversion to touch before, it had increased tenfold since then. Even the girls caused his anxiety to go through the roof. Watching him fall apart daily was getting to be draining, and although Morgan would never fault him for that, he just wished his partner would take better care of himself and take the help that both he and Hotch offered.

Hotch advised seeing a Bureau psychologist, Morgan offered to take him to a private one. He said no to both.

But their secret was out - everyone knew they were in a relationship now so that was a bit of a stress reliever, but Reid still confessed to him that he worried about word spreading and eventually getting in trouble from the higher ups, specifically the infamous Erin Strauss. Even now, they both heard mentions of their names in foreign conversations wafting around the bullpen, and it seemed like whenever they were close to one another, a dozen pairs of beady eyes looked on that didn’t normally pay them any attention. Spencer was never a social person anyway, and suddenly being the center of attention and focus of the gossip that went on combined with his trauma was not good.

It was amazing that Spencer had rebounded like he did though. He wasn’t back to normal, not even close, and Derek doubted he ever would be, but he was back to work within a month and on the surface, nothing appeared to be wrong with him. He still complained of occasionally numbness in his fingers and toes, but his primary doctor assured him that within six to eight months time, that would most likely go away on its own. He had healed almost completely from the assault, but Spencer expressed no desire to be intimate with him and Derek knew it was going to take time. It wasn’t important to him anyway - all that mattered was making sure that Spencer healed thoroughly and completely, and even he was left with the scars, Derek wouldn’t let him think for even a second that they took away from his worth.

But those words caught him off guard. _I never even saw his face_. Spencer didn’t even get a glimpse of his assaulter, his rapist, and that, perhaps, was a tragedy in and of itself. The fear of being blinded combined with the fear of being hurt at any given moment was something that Derek couldn't even imagine living through, because at least he had been able to connect his trauma to a face, a specific being. Spencer didn’t get that.

“Do you want to?” Morgan asked in return, and the immediate hesitation on Reid’s face was unmistakable. Was that such a good idea? The faceless man in his dreams would become identifiable, and therefore the trauma would manifest itself in that one man’s very existence, and Spencer wondered briefly if that was healthy or not. He didn’t know what he wanted, and worrying on his bottom lip wasn’t giving him an answer.

“I don’t… I don’t know if that’s a good idea, but I just think that I… Do you think it’s a good idea?” He said, seeking advice from the one individual he trusted most in the world - the _only_ person he really trusted. The rest of their little family had done nothing to lose his trust, but his trust was already fragile, so to see it shatter so easily after what had happened was no surprise, and the team didn’t see it as one anyway.

“I don’t think I can answer that for you,” Derek said carefully, and Spencer reached out slowly from where they sat on Derek’s living room sofa together to link their hands together. Spencer had been staying with him pretty permanently over the past few months.

“Why not?” Spencer asked in a small voice.

A hockey game was on tv, a pretty important one too, but Derek had something much more important right in front of him. He sighed softly, stroking the back of Spencer’s hands with his thumbs. He still had some scars from the frostbite blisters, but they would eventually fade into a semblance of a memory. The look of utter distraught on Spencer’s face was devastating, and it caused Derek’s chest to ache, but he could only begin to imagine the pain Spencer was feeling. To be violated in such a way was confusing, upsetting, and absolutely destructive, and Derek knew what that felt like. But he had no idea what it was like to be laid down in the snowy Alaskan wilderness in order to _return home_.

“Because that’s something you have to decide for yourself. You can either go the rest of your life never seeing the man who… _hurt_ you, or you can attach a face to the trauma. Whatever will help you heal is what matters, and I think you should—“

“I want to see him,” Spencer cut in, his eyes meeting Morgan’s with such a ferocity that almost didn’t belong in his soft eyes. He only hoped this wouldn’t traumatize him more, because to lose the progress that he had made over the past few months would be horrible, and he didn’t know if Spencer would be able to take that without having a complete breakdown.

Wordlessly, Derek stood up to collect the case file from his desk in his office, and he returned shortly after to find Reid, uncurled from his former position and now sitting on the edge of the couch with his hands clasped over his lap, one leg bouncing rapidly. He looked up as soon as Derek approached, and Morgan nearly forgot how dark the circles around his eyes were. He had been getting even less sleep than normal, so maybe letting him make a decision like this while sleep deprived wasn't such a good idea, but Derek trusted Spencer’s judgement. He opened up the file, breezing past the typed forms and other crime scene pictures only for Spencer to stop him, swiping his long fingers across one of the printed photos, the victim’s naked body sprawled out in the snow carelessly, a layer of icy accumulation built up over his pale skin.

“Did I look like that?” Spencer asked quietly, not bothering to look up.

“Spencer—“

“ _Did I look like that?_ ” He repeated more forcefully this time, his slender hand trembling where it hovered over the picture, his index finger drawing unrecognizable patterns through the snow, the victim’s body, all of it. Derek felt a shiver creep across his skin, and he frowned heavily as an unimaginable fear of losing Reid washed over him. Spencer was alive and right next to him. He wasn’t a pale corpse blending into a wintered forest with glazed eyes staring into a never-ending void of nothingness. Yet somehow, while gazing upon the crime scene pictures, he knew for a fact that Spencer had at one time looked _just like that_ and those images would forever be vivid in his memory.

“It doesn't matter, because you don’t look like that now,” Derek said, and Spencer just huffed when he didn’t receive the response he wanted. _Yes_ , he wanted to answer, _you did look like that but I can’t stand the thought of finding a frozen corpse and not_ you.

“You avoided the question. That means I did,” Spencer concluded easily, thumbing through the pictures with a blank expression, but when he settled on Mason Wright’s university i.d., he paused and looked to Morgan, asking the question burning on his mind wordlessly.

Morgan hesitantly wrapped an arm around his lover, nodding his head just barely. Spencer was motionless, speechless, _numb_ like his fingers and toes buried under the snow for a solid five minutes, but the minute his lips parted, Morgan knew what was happening. Reid _sobbed_ until he couldn’t anymore, burying himself in Derek’s side and wailing pleas and questions that Morgan couldn’t even begin to answer, and in truth, nobody could.

_Why me?_

_Why did he have to hurt me?_

_Why didn’t he just_ kill _me?_

Derek’s eyes fell close, tears dripping from behind his closed lids as Spencer clung to him like he clung to the life he nearly lost in Anchorage.

* * *

Work the next day was a drag. Spencer was clearly exhausted and Derek swore he saw his head drop several times as he resisted the urge to follow asleep right at his desk. Spencer didn’t sleep well last night, and after seeing Mason Wright for the very first time, his nightmares finally decided to focus on his assailant’s identity, and somehow that was scarier than a faceless body. The voice would forever be burned into his mind, whispering words that never should have been uttered and saying things that were reserved for Derek and Derek alone. ‘Pretty boy’ would never quite feel the same, and Derek caught onto that almost immediately when he saw his lover’s shoulders tense up after he said it. He did his best to avoid it since then.

Derek didn’t let Spencer do much around the office, even insisting on getting his coffee for him whenever he wanted another cup and hovering around the boy constantly. Even when he went to the bathroom, Morgan insisted on waiting for him in case something happened. He didn’t want Spencer to be alone should some external stimuli trigger a flashback. Just a few days ago, Spencer had done something as simple as _opening the freezer_ and had a flashback. He supposed it was the coldness, Derek couldn’t really be sure, but since Spencer’s triggers were unpredictable, he wanted to be there in case of a sporadic panic attack.

But today was the first day that Spencer was allowed back in the field. It had been three months exactly, and after passing the psych evaluation, he was deemed safe for field work. Spencer could pass any test put in front of him though, and since he helped write the damn thing, it wasn’t surprising that he had passed with ‘flying colors’ as Hotch had said. They couldn’t keep him out of the field if he had passed it though, and Derek only hoped that it would be a few days before they got another case.

But it didn’t look like they were going to have that luxury. JJ strutted past quickly, patting the files in her arms with a grim expression as she headed to the roundtable room. Derek stood up, as did Spencer, and the two ventured up the stairs together. They took their seats, preparing for Garcia to start the briefing. Hotch regarded Reid carefully, as did almost every member of the BAU in their own subtle way, but Spencer was silent and simply looked over the file that had been placed before him.

It was a typical case, nothing they hadn’t seen before; prostitutes found in dumpsters, throats slashed, wrapped in garbage bags - the usual. Spencer didn't even blinked while reading it, numbing himself emotionally and focusing only on the facts. He couldn’t think of what the women went through, and thinking about their fear only enhanced his own trauma. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, Morgan examining his face carefully but Spencer only looked up at him with blank eyes. _Stop worrying._

But all Derek could do was worried. Trauma didn’t go away on its own, and he briefly wondered how healthy it was to let Reid right back into the field even though they all knew that he was struggling.

_“I’ve been… craving, again,” Spencer had confessed to him quietly. He had just stepped out of the shower, wearing nothing but his fuzzy, oversized robe and carefully sitting himself beside Derek on the sofa. Derek had been surprised to hear it, and he blinked owlishly before just nodding slowly and turning his body to face the younger man._

_“Why?” He asked dumbly. He knew the answer, but it was important for Spencer to hear it himself._

_“Because… I don’t want to think anymore,” Spencer whispered lowly, as if it were a secret._

_“Spencer, it isn’t worth it. Think of all of the work you’ve done, the progress you’ve made in staying sober. How long has it been?”_

_“One year, eight months and thirteen days,” he answered robotically, his skinny legs squeezing together like a vice. Derek sighed softly, resting his hand on one of his knees carefully, ignoring the small flinch of Spencer’s lithe frame._

_“Would it be worth throwing that all away?” He questioned him._

_“...Maybe.”_

Derek knew his lover wasn’t using, but it was a constant fear that plagued his mind. If Spencer did turn to the needle again, he didn’t know what he would do. Spencer had suffered enough, and too many times had he been abandoned to deal with the pain on his own. Perhaps it started all the way back in childhood, losing a father who was too selfish to care for his family any longer and losing a mother to the very depths of her own mind, where she couldn’t remember if he was a student from her college classes or her own child. It had devolved from there into a desperate desire to be noticed by those above him, and when he naturally attached himself to Gideon, he came to view the older man as a surrogate father.

Tobias had shaken him to his very core, playing with the strings of Spencer’s life like he were a marionette, moving him however he wished. He had _killed_ him, brought him back, and ultimately killed him again when Spencer developed an addiction to Dilaudid. The drug, too, meddled with Spencer’s life, teetering him on the edge of overdosing far too many times until the time when once he did and Derek was in shambles. Reid promised to get clean then and there, sobbing into his chest as an IV plunged into his arm restored the nutrients he had deprived himself of for days.

But then Reid was abandoned again. His relationship with Gideon was severed so easily, and with only a letter to remember him by, Spencer naturally equated Gideon with his biological father, and he could no longer stand the thought of him. He had relapsed then, only for a few weeks until he swore to Derek he would get clean again because he valued his sobriety more than anything. And then he had seen his father in Vegas, when investigating the Riley Jenkins case. He realized then that he had no desire to form a relationship with him, especially since his father made no effort to after nearly twenty years. He had no desire to form a relationship with him, so as soon as his personal business in Vegas had been settled, he severed that connection all on his own, despite the pain it brought him. He rid both his father and Gideon from his mind, because it was better that way.

With the briefing over, everyone rose from where they sat, except for Spencer who lingered in his chair a bit longer, taking a few deep breaths.

“Are you okay?” Morgan asked quietly, leaning down slightly towards his partner. But Spencer just shook his head, stood like the powerful man he was, and closed the file.

“I’m fine,” he assured him, but the hesitation in his eyes told another story.

“Reid…” Morgan tried, following after Spencer as his long legs carried him out of the roundtable room. Spencer spun around, his brows knitted and his features clearly frustrated.

“Derek, _please_ , just let me do my job,” he nearly exclaimed, his voice rising several octaves before he continued on his way to the bullpen to collect his go bag. Derek sighed, dragging a hand over his head as he watched his lover go off on his own, clearly fighting the emotions he so badly needed to release.

He had never been good at showing his emotions, and when he did, it was a toss up. The way Spencer expressed himself when he was upset was always unpredictable, because sometimes he would cry, other times he would be silently angry, and in the rare occasion of an outburst, he would scream and throw things. But this reaction was unexpected and had never been witnessed before. He wasn’t dealing with any of it, and instead, was avoiding it completely and acting like everything was _fine_ when it clearly wasn’t _fine_ and _he_ wasn’t _fine_.

Derek was worried.

* * *

_“Your pain is the breaking of your shell that encloses your understanding.”_

-Khalil Gibran

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to follow me on Tumblr! -@makaylajadewrites
> 
> Edited 3/1/21


	10. X

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew this was a tough one! Ngl, I struggled a lot with this chapter and I'm still not entirely happy with it. But here it is!

_“And sometimes I have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to describe them in.”_

-Jane Austen

* * *

“Reid, how’s the geographical profile coming along?” Hotch asked.

So far, they had been there for a few hours, some of the team members surveying the crime scenes while others interviewed family members and others prostitutes. They had easily concluded that their unsub was likely a misogynistic male in his mid twenties to early thirties. Evidence of sexual assault was inconclusive because of their occupation, according to the M.E., but they assumed with reasonable conviction that each woman had been sexually assaulted shortly before she died.

Due to Reid’s limited exposure in the field, he was put to work on the geographical profile, but that didn’t spare him from the horror lying in wait inside of his own mind. It waited, as patiently as could be, stalking his every thought and forcing him into a constant state of paranoia and fear. He was standing there, as still as could be, and although it wasn’t the crime scene photos that caused it, they were certainly a trigger in the panic attack he felt himself devolving into.

The dead bodies hardly even phased him before - he could look at a corpse, blood drenching their skin from multiple stab wounds, and tell the exact number of entry points if he wanted to. But now, just seeing the women’s gaping throats, their fronts soaked red, was difficult for him to process.

“Reid?” Someone else said behind him in an effort to get his attention, but all he could hear was the roaring wind in the wintered forest, and his extremities were beginning to go numb again with the blistering cold that suddenly engulfed him whole.

His lips were twitching, lashes batting to ward off any threatening tears while he held back the sob clawing its way up his throat. He was breathing heavily, shakily, his chest heaving far too rapidly for it to be considered normal anymore. He was a wreck, and before he knew it, that hand on his shoulder turned into a pair of arms wrapping around him, his body ultimately collapsing its entire weight against the other.

“It’s cold, why is it so cold?” He heard himself whisper frantically, and a voice simply hushed him as he grasped tightly onto their shirt. “I can’t feel my hands or feet.”

He was crying outright now, most likely drawing attention but he wasn’t in a state of mind where that registered as important. All he could do was focus on the warm body holding him close because he was so, so _cold_ and his fingers and toes felt like they were freezing and on fire at the same time. He let out something akin to a cry as he was forced to move from his position against the warm body, and those arms left him and he felt like he was dying all over again.

_“You feel so good Pretty Boy… All tight and warm.” The breath ripped from his throat with each thrust. His lanky limbs were sprawled across the infested mattress as his body was ravaged by a scavenger, who picked the flesh from his ribcage like some kind of sick connoisseur._

_“Please stop,” he whispered to him, the bitter cold chilling him to the bone. And it didn’t stopped. It continued and continued until there was nothing left and he was—_

“Make it stop, make it stop…” he sobbed, hitting his head against the hard surface in front of him, panicking as his hands were clutched close to his chest. But a soothing voice whispering in his ear sent a warmth down his neck, and the cold retreated for just a split second.

“Spencer, Spencer, I need you to breathe, can you do that for me?” He heard that familiar voice once again, deep and slightly raspy from its lowered volume, but those chilly winds wailed in his ears like a banshee. He continued to bob his head back and forth against the surface in front him, which he now recognized as Morgan’s chest, the cold returning with overwhelming ferocity.

“Oh god, I can’t… I can’t, I can’t,” he sobbed, solid hands resting on his biceps and squeezing just slightly. Slender fingers made piano motions against his thighs, drumming there repeatedly over and over again to match the rhythm of his head banging. A monotone hum vibrated in his throat, teeth nibbling on his bottom lip. Those strong hands rubbed up and down his arms, directing him through slowing his breathing down and whispering comfortingly to him in a way that felt like _home_. As the fog lifted from his eyes, he blinked away the cold and the darkness of that basement and the rough surface of the dirty mattress. He licked his trembling lips, meeting a dark, familiar gaze filled to the brim with concern.

“Are you with me, baby?” Morgan asked lowly, squeezing his arms just slightly again. Spencer glanced around the room, but the looks on his teammates faces were unbearable, and he quickly averted his line of sight back to Derek who offered him a small, careful smile. He didn’t return it, and he suddenly felt incredibly embarrassed, ashamed, _weak._

“I-I’m sorry, I thought I was…” he trailed off, and Morgan nodded his head instantly in understanding, stroking his arm carefully, his thumb brushing over the crook off his arm as if reminding him that he _knew_ of the horrors that he had faced in his life, not once, but many times before. Mason Wright was just another tally to the already existing list, but it was getting to be even harder to get over him. After Tobias, he had never had an actual _meltdown_ in public before, and even though his team members were able to see that something was wrong with him, he never let it get this bad. He was craving suddenly, and Morgan’s hand on his arm was making him recollect the sensation of a needle pricking his skin and numbing him to the world.

It was strange how heroin and the cold were not so different.

Hotch approached the two men with a slight falter in his step, and even though he was still a bit out of it, Spencer couldn’t remember the last time he saw Hotch so unsure of himself. He was one of the most confident, self assured people he knew, and as he realized that _he_ was the one causing his uncertainty, he felt a little more worse about himself. Fresh tear tracks still on his flushed face, Hotch glanced back and forth between him and Derek, his eyes finally settling on Derek since he was the one out of the two of them most equipped to make decisions right now.

“Morgan, why don’t you take him back the hotel to let him rest a little while?” He murmured quietly, and Derek instantly nodded his head, standing up and ultimately helping Reid to his feet as well. Spencer felt like deadweight, both literally and figuratively. His team needed him, and although he clearly wasn’t in the right headspace to work, he felt useless to them. He had always been the type to crave approval, and now that he had nothing to offer, he felt like he had been infantilized.

He could remember the days when he would come home from high school at the tender age of eleven or twelve, walking the quarter mile home from the bus stop with his perfect report card clutched in his hand, teachers’ comments lining the empty spaces praising him for his intelligence. But when he arrived home to tell his mother, whose approval meant the world to him, she would be too far gone to even notice. So he would sit beside her in bed reading a book that a child shouldn’t possibly understand, sparing glances at her resting face and fighting back the tears that begged to be released. He would cry himself to sleep in his own bed, envying the teenagers he went to school with who cursed their parents simply because they wouldn’t allow them to stay out past a certain time while he hardly even had one parent. He wanted parents who cared enough about him to put curfews in place and to set limitations on where he was allowed to go and who he was allowed to spend time with. He wanted a mother who would stress over his eating habits and wish him a good day every morning, but he was simply a fly on the wall in the deterioration of her mental status, and it pained him to watch her whither further and further away as the years went by.

He wasn’t sure when, but they arrived at the hotel room at some point in time, and with Derek’s guidance, his outer layer was stripped until he was in nothing more than his boxers and an undershirt, but not long after were a pair of pajama pants pulled up his long legs. His lips quirked oddly, as they tended to do, and Derek sat beside him, the mattress dipping further down under the initial weight. It was silent for several long moments, Reid not wanting to talk and Derek unsure what to say. Without words though, he took Spencer’s frail, thinning hand in his own, stroking his knuckles and the length of his slender fingers.

But Spencer didn’t cry, his eyes stared down at his bare toes, unable to rid his memory of the time when they were blue in color and swelling with blisters. He took in a breath through his parted lips and exhaled deeply from his nose, his hand trembling just slightly in Derek’s hand. They didn’t share any words, because the way Derek looked at him was all the communication they needed.

_You’re not okay. You_ weren’t _okay, not even for a second._

And as unfortunate as that realization was, he knew he had to stop this now before he fell even further until he was out of Derek’s reach. If the drugs came back into the picture, he wasn’t sure if he would be able to climb out of that ever-collapsing sinkhole, and in truth, he doubted he would want to. Derek wouldn’t be able to help him anymore, and he would become even more of a burden than he originally thought. Perhaps it was only a matter of time until he felt out of arm’s length; it was simply fated to be that he would fall and that was how his life was supposed to be.

But like the soul, Spencer did not believe in fate. His scientific mind wouldn’t allow it, because nothing in the world could ever explain to him how _this_ was the hand he was dealt in life. No all-powerful entity in the sky could ever explain it in a way that would make sense to him, because the things he had seen and the struggles he had faced were constructed by pure _evil_. If a god really did exist, Spencer would only ask why they allowed so much pain to exist in a world where happiness was the primary goal of human excellence. Why would they allow so much suffering to exist if they truly did love the humans that they sent to inhabit the earth. Maybe he was never meant to understand, but for as long as he lived, he would never comfort himself by saying that fate had controlled the ultimate outcome of his life, and Morgan would agree with him on that more than anybody.

Finally, as the thickening silence grew to be too much, Derek spoke, and what he said was not what Spencer had expected at all. It was something that left him thoughtless, and he briefly wondered what it would be like to disappear entirely.

“You need help, Spencer,” he had said, and Spencer’s lips parted to allow his tongue to swipe across them. He didn’t know what that meant, and he almost wondered if he would end up like his mother, thrown into an asylum away from the rest of the world because everything around him served as a trigger.

“I’m not crazy,” he whispered, unsure of his own voice since it wavered so terribly, balancing on the edge of a cliff between silence and outright sobbing.

“I never said you were,” Derek assured him, letting their fingers slide together aimlessly. “You just… need help. From a professional. Someone who can give you what I can’t.”

Spencer let his tongue slide across his lips once more, his eyes closing slowly as he realized what was being said to him. “I don’t want to,” he said in that same shaky whisper, “I don’t want to end up like my mom.” His other hand came to trace the scarred track marks on the inside of his arm.

“Spencer…” Derek hummed, almost in disbelief as an incredulous expression twisted his features. “I would never do that to you.”

“I said the same thing to my mom, once,” he confessed quietly, exhaling weakly. “I told her I would take care of her… But I couldn’t do it anymore. I had to go on with my life. It’s only logical that you’ll do the same.”

Derek sighed softly and just shook his head, disentangling their fingers and bringing his arm up around the back of Spencer’s neck, pressing his palm against the opposite side of Reid’s head and bringing their temples together. Those chestnut curls tickled his cheek, and he looked down at his lap, listening as Spencer’s breathing hitched.

“I would never put you away. This is just a bit of a curve for us, okay? It isn’t always going to be like this. We’ll come out from this together because I know you’re strong enough to overcome this. In case you’ve forgotten, you _are_ Doctor Spencer Reid,” he said as a little reminder, and the slight upward jerk of Reid’s shoulders was reminiscent of a single chuckle.Spencer didn’t say anything else, but nothing else was needed. Morgan’s phone began to ring, and he pulled it out of his pocket and answered immediately.

“Yeah, Hotch?” He asked, quiet for a few seconds before sighing and casting a sideways glance towards Reid, who simply stared at the floor. “Alright. I’ll be there in ten,” he said before hanging up.

“I don’t want to leave you here,” Morgan confessed, and he watched as Spencer’s hands entangled themselves in the sheets beneath them, clenching them up and unclenching in a pattern that made him feel better. He sighed softly, raising his eyes finally to meet Derek’s.

“I’ll be fine,” he said, and he only wished that was true.

Several days later, they were on their way back to Quantico. They had been able to catch the unsub in near record time, even without Spencer’s presence, and that made him feel a little bit worse than he had before they started. He had been taken off of the case, off of the record, and Hotch instructed him to stay at the hotel. He didn’t want him involved in the case in fear it would only damage him further, and even though many officers at the precinct had front row seats to his meltdown, they never mentioned it. The job was rough, they understood that. Maybe Reid was really the brave one for letting others see that side of him.

Morgan and Spencer hadn’t talked about what happened on the case, and neither seemed eager to, but Derek knew this couldn’t go on. He couldn’t continue to do this to himself, and the longer he attempted to push aside trauma, the worse the aftermath would be.

After a nice yet oddly quiet dinner of takeout Indian food, Morgan gathered Reid’s hands into his own, holding them carefully and acknowledging the weight loss; the pounds that had fallen from his frame that he really couldn’t afford to lose. Spencer didn’t say anything, looking to his lover’s face expectantly since this was obviously about to turn into a conversation, one that neither really wanted to have but needed.

“Spencer,” Derek started, licking his lips and pausing, unsure what to say and how to continue their conversation from in the hotel room.

“Derek,” Spencer said simply in response, his hands nearly limp in Morgan’s larger hands.

“I… I really care about you,” Derek said then, never feeling so unsure of himself in all of his life. He usually knew what he wanted to say, being a straightforward person. But this was such a delicate situation, and the last thing he wanted to do was hurt Spencer inadvertently though his words. They left the deepest scars, after all.

Spencer was silent, his jaw locked in place and his lips pressed together into a tight, thin line. His hazel eyes struggled to meet Derek’s directly, but they stayed on his face at least, and Derek wouldn’t complain about that.

“Which is why I want to help you get the help that you need. Help that I can’t give you,” he reiterated what he said before, squeezing his hands slightly. Spencer gave no squeeze back, and the expression on his face was absolutely broken.

“You’re sending me away,” he breathed out, and it took him little time to yank his hands away and stand up, shaking his head quickly. “No, no, I can’t go in there. I can’t, Derek,” he nearly sobbed. Derek was quick to stand, following after the doctor who began to pace the room in a panic.

“Now, Spencer, listen to me, _listen to me_ ,” he said, catching his lover from behind. But Spencer simply flew around in a fury, eyes wide and angry.

“ _Don’t touch me_ ,” he hissed, arms instinctively curling around his torso, arms shoved under his armpits. Morgan felt helpless, watching Spencer jump to conclusions that he simply didn’t mean.

“I want you to start seeing someone. A therapist,” Derek tried again, but Spencer hummed flatly and shook his head for at least thirty seconds, his brows furrowed.

“No, no, no,” he said, repeating himself several times. His hands rose, entangling themselves in his hair as he circled around, catching sight of a book on the bedside table. In the heat of the moment, his anger rose, and he flung Faulkner’s _As I Lay Dying_ in Derek’s direction, but it fell to the floor at his feet. “No, you’re trying to lock me away! I _hate_ you!”

“Calm down, Pretty Boy…” Derek said, his concern rising further and further. He had never seen him like this, and he was growing more and more worried by the second when Spencer stopped dead in his tracks on his way to the door.

_“Look at you, all puckered and ready for me. You have no idea what you do to me,_ Pretty Boy _.”_

“D-Don’t call me that! Don’t you _ever_ call me that!” He shouted once he broke from his trance, throwing the door open.

“Spencer, _please_ , wait!” He begged as he hurriedly followed along, watching Spencer’s willowy form run away - from what, exactly, he was not sure.

“No, leave me alone!” He cried out, and the wretched sound that tore from his throat when Derek’s hand wrapped around his wrist was _traumatizing_ and Morgan gasped as the other man yanked his body away. He collected his car keys from the dish by the door, not even bothering to close it on his hasty departure. Derek stood in the entryway, watching desperately as Spencer got in his car and left without even a glance in his direction. He dragged his hands down his face, ignoring the tears. He collected his phone, sitting down on the sofa for the duration of the call. When Penelope answered, he was on the verge of tears, but he had one simple request:

“Garcia, baby girl… I really need your help.”

* * *

_“How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home.”_

-William Faulkner, _As I Lay Dying_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Add me on Tumblr! -@makaylajadewrites
> 
> Edited 3/2/20


	11. XI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 11 is here after only a few days!! I was surprised with how quickly I was able to write this, but I had been planning for this moment nearly five chapters ago, and it was just begging to be written!
> 
> Please heed the tags with this chapter, and I hope you enjoy!

_The dust and dirt  
Blind us slowly  
But give a hint of a view to make it feel alright  
And though it hurts  
We keep on climbing  
Cause our addictions take us from inside_

Lyrics from “Kill Our Way to Heaven” - Michl

* * *

Even though it was the nation’s capital, DC was no exception to crime, specifically, drug crime. Like any other city, there were corner sales to businesses and storefronts, and as unfortunate as it was, Spencer knew where many of them were. See, most drug dealers didn’t just sell one drug, they often offered a plethora of drugs. His own personal dealer back in the day offered everything from hash to heroin, and when Dilaudid proved to be a bit difficult to acquire on the streets, the natural response was to switch to the all-too-similar heroin. They had just about the same effects, although it would never be the same as Tobias’ psychedelic-cut Dilaudid. He would miss that terribly, and although he probably could have done it himself, he never did.

So there he was, sitting in his car right across from the drug front disguised as an antique shop, and it worked out well since, if any who knew him saw him walking in, they wouldn’t think anything of it. He couldn’t believe he was about to do this. Throwing his sobriety away just to deal with the trauma seemed ridiculous, but he remembered vividly the effects from his drug use in the past, and he was craving that feeling now more than ever.

He sighed and pushed himself out of his car after willing his legs to carry him, stuffing his hands in his pocket and jaywalking across the street to the store. He glanced around hesitantly, and doubt flared in his chest almost painfully. Derek would be enraged and crushed to know he had relapsed a second time, but he didn’t know how to tell the cravings ‘no’ anymore. He entered the business, the little bell at the top of the door clanging against the glass and nearly making him jump out of his own skin. He swallowed nervously, reaching a hand up to brush his growing hair out of his face.

“Doc? Is that you?” His old dealer, Stevie, said from behind the register. He had looked up from his phone, most likely contacting some of his buyers, but he was clearly more surprised to see Reid walking in after nearly a year.

  
“Yeah… Yeah, it’s me,” he said, and Stevie frowned but just beckoned for him to come closer. Spencer did so, already digging in his back pocket for his wallet.

“Thought you got clean. This life doesn’t really suit you, you know,” the other man said while nonchalantly reaching under the counter to withdraw a prepackaged baggy, a tenth of a gram of heroin inside.

“Once an addict, always an addict,” Spencer said like a mantra, as if it were separate nature to him. Steve chuckled slightly at that.

“Hey, if you buy a five pack of rigs, I’ll throw in another tenth. For old time’s sake,” he said, and Spencer instantly nodded his head. With two-tenths of heroin, five hypodermic needles, a lighter, a spoon, and sixty dollars spent, he left the store with his goodies in a brown paper bag. His lips trembling by the time he got back to his car, he broke down and threw the bag into the passenger seat in frustration, pressing his palms against his eyes. But the desire to feel numb again was crippling, and he could hardly stand it.

So he did what any reasonably drug addict would do. He pulled his car into an alley way and hunkered down in the backseat. With shaking fingers, he sprinkled just a bit of the powder into the metal concavity, sparking the lighter several times until he got a steady flame. He watched as the powder gradually melted into a honey colored liquid, a shiver running up his spine at the anticipation alone. Nearly spilling some of it in his haste to get a needle, he cursed under his breath while unwrapping it from his packaging.

With practiced ease and familiarity, he drew the liquid into the needle, making sure to get every last drop before he put the spoon in the bag with the rest of his paraphernalia. Tilting the needle back, he flicked the end of it and squirted some out to get rid of any lingering air bubbles. His belt came off and wrapped around his upper arm, and after he felt around for a viable vein, he plunged the needle in like he had never stopped. He let his head fall back against the window, mouth agape and eyes half lidded while the drug fulfilled its purpose.

Out went the memory of Mason Wright and in came the heroin, his presence calming and warm in his veins. Just the prick of needle against skin alone was orgasmic. He made Spencer quiver, his toes curl, and every single time he swept him off of his feet. They were in love, so deeply, and not even a year’s worth of sobriety could keep them apart. Spencer was so in love that he failed to see behind his mask which covered up his true purpose as a deadly poison. Every kiss sucked him dry, and the longer they spent together, the sicker Spencer got. He abused him until his arms were sore and raw, his face more bone than skin, but he only craved him more.

No matter how much he hurt him, Spencer would come back every time for just another ounce of passion. He made Spencer lie, cheat, and ultimately isolated him from his family. He wore down his body, showering him with false promises and empty romance, and Spencer would go to sleep at night, only to wake up in an empty bed. It was an endless cycle, trying to escape that sparkle in his eyes, and in the end, not even Spencer could resist him as a passionate temptation.

* * *

“How long has he been gone?” Garcia asked, bustling through the front door like the bouncy woman she was. Morgan dragged a hand over his shaved head, blowing a raspberry with his lips in thought.

“Maybe an hour? I don’t know… He was so upset, Garcia, he _threw a book_ at me. I’ve never seen him like that before,” he said, and Penelope plopped down on the couch beside him, opening up her laptop. Even though it was her personal one, she still had the tracking software on it, and after a couple seconds of clacking on the keys, Garcia got a ping on Reid’s location based on his cellphone.

“Here. On 9th street in Brentwood,” she said, his location showing up on the city map as a red dot. Morgan perked up a bit, sharing a glance with Garcia before looking in on the map.

“Brentwood? What the hell is he doing in Brentwood?” Derek asked, clearly alarmed by this information, “That neighborhood is one of the worst in DC.”

“I don’t know, honey. Do you… Do you think he could be—“ Morgan cut her off immediately, shaking his head angrily.

“No, no, he wouldn’t do that. He values his sobriety more than anything,” Morgan said, wiping at his reddened eyes and just tossing his head back and forth. “He wouldn’t do that.”

“I think we need to go… And-And find him, just to be sure,” she said quickly, closing her laptop and looking to Morgan worriedly. Derek clenched his jaw, doing his best to keep his emotions at bay, and reluctantly, he nodded his head and stood up, following Garcia out the door with his own keys in hand.

The drive to DC was not pleasant. It was silent, an adjective that didn’t normally describe interactions between Garcia and Morgan, but both had too many thoughts on their mind at the moment. But Garcia asked the golden question, and Morgan felt conflicted.

“Should we tell the rest of the team?” She asked quietly, gently, being careful not to provoke any more emotions from the already unstable Derek Morgan. He simply sighed and shook his head, but what came out was something similar to an indecisive hum. He didn’t know if they should tell the rest of the team. They all knew that Spencer was struggling, but only Derek and now Penelope knew that it was _this_ bad. Spencer was refusing help from every direction, even his own partner. Reid still trusted him, as he always had, but Mason Wright had weakened it significantly. It had been months, and they still weren’t sleeping in the same bed together - as if Morgan could ever lay a malevolent hand on him. But he valued Spencer’s comfort level, and to do that, he had been staying in the guest room.

Would it be a break of trust to tell the rest of the team?

“Sugar?” Penelope prompted, looking at him worriedly since he seemed a bit dazed. It wasn’t the best idea for him to be driving, but he could get them to Reid’s location much faster than Garcia could.

“No. No, not yet. If he… If he _did_ _it_ , then yes. But now, I can’t… I can’t do that to him,” Morgan said, and Penelope frowned but just nodded her head, blonde curls bouncing with the movement.

He didn’t know what kind of scene would await them when they finally did make it to Spencer’s location. He was hoping he would just be okay, sitting in his car somewhere reading a book or lost in a library, but he knew better than that. He should have been prepared for this and he should have been able to prevent it. But he turned a blind eye, telling himself that Spencer was just going through a rough patch and would return back to normal after therapy and time. He should have noticed it sooner, the temptation crawling back into Spencer’s conscience, swaying him towards a path of addiction once more. But still, the sight of Spencer, his lover, sprawled out in the backseat of his Prius with a needle lodged in his arm was enough to make a grown man cry, and cry out, he did.

“Oh my god… Garcia, call an ambulance!” He shouted, yanking the door open and quickly collecting Reid in his arms, slithering his slim frame out of the car and slowly moving him down to lay on his side on the concrete. He was bordering on unconsciousness and his breathing was far too shallow for Derek’s liking, and Garcia was visibly panicking in the background, her voice frantic and loud as she yelled at the 911 operator. Spencer make a gargled noise in his throat, and his half lidded eyes rolling around blindly.

“Hey, baby boy, I’ve got you… Keep your eyes open, you know how much I love those eyes,” Derek said, his voice wavering. He slid the needle out of his arm and tossed it aside, quickly removing the belt from around his bicep and stroking the reddened skin gently. Reid’s head lulled to the side and his eyes fell shut, and even in his sickened state, the thought of how beautiful he was passed through Derek’s mind.

“No, no, no, stay with me, Spencer, I told you to keep your eyes open!” Derek exclaimed, panicking now as his hand drifted upwards to Reid’s neck, feeling desperately for a pulse that wasn’t there anymore.

“Oh my god, Derek, he’s not breathing,” Penelope said, now kneeling on the other side of Reid’s body with tears flowing heavily down her cheeks, smearing her makeup in the process.

Like he had done so many times in the past for crime victims, Derek rolled Spencer onto his back, beginning chest compressions and wincing slightly as he felt his lover’s sternum collapsing under each downward push. He muttered out his counts, and Penelope held onto Spencer’s oddly limp hand.

It was never so still, never. Spencer’s hands were always moving, making strange gestures as he talked, fiddling with the strap of his messenger back, hiding underneath the cuff of a too-long sweater. Yet he was still and unmoving and Derek was _panicking._

“Come on, baby, don’t give up on me now,” he breathed through a threatening sob, tears falling from his own eyes as he continued his compressions because, even if Spencer was giving up, he would never give up on Spencer. It took nearly eight and a half minutes until the EMTs arrived, and when they did, it took two of them to physically pry Morgan’s body away from Spencer. He watched from the sidelines, Penelope sobbing in his arms. He was unable to resist wincing again as they administered Narcan, piercing Spencer’s too-pale skin with another needle.

He would never understand, how Spencer would throw everything away just for a moment’s escape. It frustrated and terrified him to no end, especially to see him, on the verge of death, sprawled out on the concrete. The blueish tint of Spencer’s lips was haunting, and he felt a sob escape his tightening throat, this scene all too familiar to the way he found his lover in the Alaskan wilderness. But nothing would ever compare to his half frozen state, his skin as white as the falling snow which surrounded him like an icy coffin.

The cold had not treated Spencer kindly. It was cruel and harsh, demeaning and belittling, able to crush a man until he was nothing more than broken bones. It tore people apart, it did. Ravaging their souls until they were breathless in a frozen wasteland. Spencer might have escaped the cold, but the cold would never escape him.

* * *

“Maybe life isn’t about avoiding the bruises. Maybe it’s about collecting the scars to prove we showed up for it.”

-Unknown


	12. XII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright everyone, this is the major turning point in Spencer's strive for healing. I hope you all enjoy!

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”

-Confucius

* * *

When Spencer woke up next, it was to a blurry, dimmed hospital room, his arms feeling like they weighed a hundred pounds at his sides. An oxygen mask was fitted over his mouth, supplying him with plenty of air since the overdose had most likely compromised his airwaysat first. A guttural moan erupted in the back of his throat, his toes twitching and ridding away the sensation of pins and needles. He wasn’t sure how long he had been out, but he knew it couldn’t have been that long since it was light outside still, unless he was out for an entire day.

He reached a hand up, trembling fingers unsteady in his attempt to reach for the oxygen mask, wanting it gone immediately. Even though it was supposed to help him breathe, he felt like he was suffocating with it on and his body began to spasm in his effort to get it off, get it off, _get it off_. His eyes flickered around the room desperately, and soon, a shadow casted over him.

“Calm down, Spence, you’re safe. You need to keep the mask on, okay? At least until your oxygen levels get back to normal,” JJ said to him, holding his hand in her own and slowly lowering it down to rest on his chest, and almost instantly, he began to calm down, his shallow, rapid breaths slowing considerably. “Try and get some more rest.”

He hummed indifferently as the exhaustion overtook him, his eyes fluttering close again. Surely enough, he drifted off to sleep again.

* * *

“I should have seen the signs. I should have known,” Derek said, pacing in the waiting room while Garcia watched helplessly from her perch in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs.

“Honey, you couldn’t have known he was going to do that…” she tried to comfort him, her makeup smeared in some spots and old tear marks still clear on her cheeks.

“But I _should have._ Garcia, he’s my partner, I should have been able to see the changes. He’s always been a bit reserved but he’s been pulling away from me recently. I just thought… I just thought it was the trauma. I was there when he recovered from Hankel, and Gideon leaving and then his father… I was so confident he would be able to overcome this on his own,” Derek said shakily, biting his bottom lip as tears burned in his eyes. He knew Spencer was struggling, but he was only now realization how bad it was. He wrongly assumed that Spencer would be able to make it through this like he had so many other things in his life. But this was different. Rape was a terrible thing to happen to somebody. It tore a person up from the inside, shriveling their skin and infecting their very bloodstream until they became someone else and resembled the darkness that grew inside. Spencer was no exception.

“Baby, please,” Garcia almost whined from where she sat, holding her hands out towards Derek. He took them instantly and with her gentle guidance, he found himself sitting down beside her, sniveling pathetically. “It doesn’t matter if you could have prevented it or not. It’s already happened, but that doesn’t mean it’s over with. Reid is strong, he just needs help,” she said, and Derek nodded, letting her pull him into her arms where he subsequently broke down, crying into the shoulder of her pink sweater.

JJ came back to the waiting room then, the two of the deciding to tell her first since she was Spencer’s best friend. She pursed her lips, her arms crossing over her chest as she sat down in one of the plastic chairs across from them.

“He woke up for just a minute, panicked and tried to take off his oxygen mask,” she said softly, hardly even fazed by the sight of Derek breaking down. She would be the same way if it were Will. “He fell right back asleep when I calmed him down.”

“Good,” Derek said, sitting up and wiping his eyes. He took a deep breath, brushing a hand over his shaved head and just looking down at the ground. “I want to see him. JJ, can you… let everyone else know?” He asked quietly, his voice wavering, and almost instantly JJ nodded her head, a solemn expression on her face.

“Go be with him. He needs to see you first when he wakes up,” she said, and Derek didn’t waste anytime going to his room.

* * *

Spencer’s eyes opened again several hours later, his vision blurry and his body feeling cold - quite a familiar feeling. He shivered, his hands reaching for the mask again and successfully slipping it down over his chin until it hung loosely around his neck. He looked around the room, realizing soon enough that he wasn’t alone because in the chair beside his hospital bed sat Derek Morgan, head resting against his hand and eyes shut. He was asleep, looking incredibly uncomfortable but still somehow peaceful despite everything that had happened.

He pushed himself up, groaning at the soreness in his body. The IV shifted in his arm at the sudden movement, and he grimaced at the discomfort. He glanced over at Morgan again whose eyes fluttered and opened, and as soon he saw Reid awake, he was by his side in an instant, preventing him from sitting up at all but pulling the oxygen mask off over his head and laying it on the bed.

“Whoa there, Spencer, take it easy, take it easy,” Derek cooed softly, and the sound of his voice alone was painful. He could hardly look at him now, unable to face him after what he had done to them, to himself, and to his sobriety. It was both embarrassing and shameful, and he felt his eyes watering already.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice breaking as he was laid back down carefully in the bed, Derek’s hands hovering above his shoulders as if he were afraid to touch him. He shook his head, his hands clenching and unclenching the sheets in an attempt to comfort himself somehow. “I’m so sorry, Derek.”

“Just tell me one thing,” Derek said softly, coming to sit on the bed beside Spencer. The younger man instantly reached out for him, and their hands connected like magnets. “Was it… Did you do it on purpose? The… The overdose, I mean,” he asked, stroking over Spencer’s bony knuckles.

Spencer swallowed nervously. He wasn’t sure. He wouldn’t call it an intentional overdose, but it certainly gave him the relief he so desperately craved at the time. It all came back to him, hitting him square in the chest and knocking the air out of his lungs to a point where he considered putting the oxygen mask back on. He had forgotten how intense heroin was, and he probably over measured the exact amount in his haste to just get the drug in his bloodstream. But for a split second, he felt like he was floating above his body, just like he had when Wright had brutalized him, and it didn’t seem so bad. It was peaceful, weightless, and he briefly, ever so briefly, contemplated what it would be like to have that sensation for all eternity.

“I…” he started, his lips trembling and pursing as a reflection of his nervousness, and he shrugged lamely in response. “I don’t… I didn’t _mean_ to, but…”

“You didn’t regret it,” Derek filled in easily, his expression surprisingly calm despite the revelation. Spencer felt tears fell down his cheeks and a second later he sobbed aloud, nodding his head and continuing to do so in a familiar stim.

“Spencer,” Derek said, squeezing his hands in an attempt to ground him and catch his attention again, “Spencer, I’m not mad at you. I’m not,” he tried to assure him.

“You should be… Look at what I did. _Look at it_ ,” he urged, thrusting the arm without the IV in it out towards Derek, and the older man just sighed and gently brushed his hand over the new track mark, red and angry on Spencer’s pale skin. He raised his arm up, brushing his lips over the mark without hesitation, his mouth lingering for a second before he looked up to meet his eyes.

“That doesn’t change anything,” he said simply.

“It should,” Spencer insisted weakly.

“Why?” Derek asked, raising a hand up to stroke Spencer’s messy curls, hating how the other man flinched away instinctually at first before relaxing into his touch. “Why should it change what we have? _I love you_ , Spencer, and nothing you say or do is going to make that go away.”

“I relapsed again,” Spencer whispered, lowering his head in shame. “I promised you, I promised I would stay clean but I failed. I just… How can you trust me after this?”

“Spencer…” Derek said with a soft sigh, letting his hand slide down to cup his lover’s cheek. “This isn’t the end, you know. We’ll overcome this.”

Spencer sighed and looked down, not responding to that sentiment, especially since giving up sounded far much better. The tears weren’t stopping, no matter how much he rid them to go away. It was like the feeling of cold that settled deep in his bones and never seemed to disappear, freezing him on the inside. But maybe it was time the help offered to him, and allow the ice to thaw. He detested the person he had become, and he knew he needed help, and since he had relapsed, getting clean again would be his first goal. But he refused to go to an inpatient center. It would be like getting locked up in a sanitarium, and he didn’t know if his psyche would be able to handle that.

“I’m tired, Derek,” he said softly, letting go of Morgan’s hand. The older man looked a bit saddened, but he nodded his head and stroked Spencer’s curls once more before smiling softly at his lover. He knew he wasn’t talking about physical exhaustion at this point, but something deeper.

“I know… But you won’t be soon enough,” he responded quietly, “If you let me help you.”

“No hospitals or inpatients,” Reid was quick to add, and Morgan chuckled slightly at his lover’s deterrence.

“Of course. We’ll get you clean again and then we’ll find a therapist, okay? A private one, whose specialized in your specific needs. Not just one of the Bureau ones, going to one of them is like not going to one at all,” he said, and Spencer bobbed his head, nibbling on his bottom lip.

“Okay,” he whispered, and he only wished that it would be okay in the end.

The next morning, he was discharged and immediately, he and Derek went home. They stopped at Spencer’s apartment so that he could grab some clothes and books, and when they arrived to Derek’s house, several of Penelope’s infamous baskets sat on the front porch. They had informed the rest of the team of Spencer’s relapse, much to his shame, but Hotch assured him that they were guaranteed their PTO days, which were well into the double digits by now since neither of them were really the vacationing type. Within that time, they set goals for Spencer, big and small.

The first was to get clean, and luckily since it was an isolated incident, the addiction hadn’t kicked into overdrive again. It would take a few days for the heroin to leave his system, and after that, he would schedule an appointment with a therapist in his area who specialized in sexual assault trauma. Derek had already shown him some of his options, and since it was be easier to talk about it to a woman, they narrowed it down to female therapists. Eventually, he settled on a woman named Trina Brown, and they scheduled an appointment in two days. The detox was hardly even bad, he had a bit of a headache on the first day, but it was hard to tell if that was from the detox or just his typical migraines. He had no other symptoms, and was feeling fine by the end of the two days. On the second night, he made a big decision, one that Derek was surprised to hear but definitely pleased with; Spencer slept in the same bed as him.

They even cuddled, at Spencer’s initiation of course. He had almost forgotten what it felt like to be held, and it was a feeling he never wanted to go without again. Derek was gentle and warm, and the ice in his chest began to thaw, gradually albeit, but he felt himself falling back into place slowly but surely. He couldn’t fall into the cycle of addiction again, otherwise he knew he wouldn’t be able to get back on his feet. Derek, as a supportive and loving partner, assured him that no matter how many times he relapsed, he would never abandon him or leave him out on the streets. Hope still existed, and Spencer was beginning to believe that it was possible to be whole again.

* * *

“We are all broken. That’s how the light gets in.”

-Ernest Hemingway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to follow me on Tumblr - @makaylajadewrites


	13. XIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to everyone who has supported me! I've been dealing with some mental health issues, but through the struggle, I have managed to write the next chapter of Metanoia.

_the tallest peaks  
i have ever seen  
belonged to mountains  
that made me_

_how I used to curse  
those steep slopes  
that taught me  
to touch the stars_

-Jody Lynn

* * *

“You must be Doctor Reid! I’m Doctor Trina Brown, but please just call me Trina. Doctor makes me feel old,” she said with a smile, thrusting her hand out enthusiastically, “It’s so nice to meet you!”

“You too,” he offered lamely, looking down at her hand nervously. At his hesitation, her hand instantly dropped back to her side, and she proceeded without even mentioning it. She must see it a lot in sexual assault victims; touch aversion.

“Now, do you prefer to be called Doctor Reid or Spencer?” She asked, passing by him to close the door to her office so they could have some privacy. Her office was also comforting, clearly set up to be that way for meetings just like his own. The walls were painted a cool blue-grey, with pieces of contemporary art hung up on the walls, and she had blackout curtains over the windows for both dim lighting and privacy. He enjoyed the various trinkets she had on the shelves behind her desk too, and as his eyes scanned over the books, he saw that they ranged from romance novels to psychology textbooks. She had a plethora of Maneki-nekos placed throughout the bookshelf and on her desk, and if he had to guess, he would say it tied in with her own culture.

“Spencer is okay,” he said, seeing as since she dropped all formalities, it would only be right if he did the same.

“Cool. Well, today is just going to be introductory stuff and I’ll probably do a lot of the talking today just to get us started. I tend to ramble a lot so if you ever need to ask a question or interrupt me for anything, just say something, okay? I don’t want to overwhelm you.”

“O-Okay,” he hummed, fiddling with his hands in his lap as she began to talk, mainly about herself and her history, what the goals of therapy were, and what to expect. He zoned out about halfway through, mainly because it sounded like she was reading from a textbook, but it was obviously something she had to say to any new patient. Patient… He hated that almost as much as victim. Before he knew it, Trina was saying they would meet again in a week, and although it seemed like he had only been there for ten minutes, after looking at his watch, he realized it had been about forty five.

That had been a week ago now.

He was slowly coming to terms with the fact that he needed to see a therapist, as much as he opposed it. He supposed he had this overwhelming fear inside because it reminded him so much of his mom and what he went through when he was younger, trying to get her help and taking care of her on his own for nearly a decade. He could remember it as if it were yesterday, bringing the men from the hospital to his family home - could it really be called that, if it was a broken family? - and allowing them to take her away since he couldn’t care for her anymore; he didn’t have the resources to and he had a life of his own to live. He could remember the absolutely devastated expression on her face when she realized what was going on, the panic in her bright eyes that differed so much from his own. Oftentimes he wished his eyes were as light as his mother’s, so that he didn’t have to carry around anymore reminders that he was his father’s son. He already had dark hair - wasn’t that enough?

“How are you feeling today, Spencer?” Trina asked him, sitting down across from him behind her cluttered desk. It reminded Reid so much of his desk at work, which he missed horribly, by the way. After some discussion between him, Morgan, and Hotch they came to the decision that a few more months of off time was necessary, and despite his disputes, Spencer had no choice but to agree. This was his second session with Trina. She was kind, definitely intelligent, and something about her just made Spencer feel a bit calmer.

“Good… Good, I guess,” he hummed, not really one for talking about his feelings. But he had agreed to do this, and as awkward and uncomfortable as he was, he promised Morgan he would try to see the benefits of therapy. Trina was definitely unorthodox in her approach though.Today was she was wearing a loose, fuzzy sweater, a pair of acid washed skinny jeans, and a pair of white gym shoes. She talked like she were engaged in casual conversation, and all level of professionalism was gone. It was strange, but definitely a good alternative to the Freudian couch therapy he had somewhat been expecting. In truth, it felt like he were revealing all of his struggles to a college student who was working on homework while simultaneously listening as he vented his problems. He felt like he was in school all over again.

“Oh yeah? What’s been good so far?” She asked him, glancing up from her notebook with a small, friendly smile on her face, almond eyes twinkling in the pale light of her office. Spencer swallowed nervously, Adam’s apple bobbing, and shrugged slightly.

“I woke up this morning,” he said softly, taking a second of thought before continuing with, “I got to see Derek.”

“He seems like he cares about you a lot. Would you say that’s true?” She asked him, scribbling down something in the silence that filled the space. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think she were writing out math problems. Spencer didn’t give a verbal response, and instead he simply nodded his head, not really wanting to talk right now but knowing he had to push through his desire to become non-verbal if he wanted to gain anything from this.

“Last time, we didn’t ever get to talk about what you’re going through, since I did all of the talking. Sorry about that again, by the way. I know the basics of what you went through, thanks to your partner, but I’d like for you to talk about it a little. You don’t have to talk about the event in detail if you don’t want to. Share as little or as much as you’d like.”

Spencer was faced with his struggles head on once again, and Trina didn’t seem bothered by his silence. Instead, she seemed to welcome it, since she went back to scribbling in her notebook, as if she weren’t a therapist and he wasn’t her patient. Her approach was strange, but definitely had its purpose. People were more willing to talk about their experiences to a friendly looking stranger as opposed to a professional therapist - he understood that, but it didn’t make it any easier for him. When Trina seemed to pick up on the fact that Spencer seemed reluctant to talk, she spoke up again;

“How would you say this is affecting you?” She asked him, shifting her position behind the desk, her hair falling over her shoulders and tumbling down over her chest. It was black and sleek, resembling Prentiss’s hair almost, but with quite a bit more length.

“I don’t know,” he said, gnawing on his bottom lip mercilessly, his hands fidgeting uncomfortable, begging to stim as he traveled through the darkened Alaskan forest once more. “I’m just… scared?”

“Scared,” Trina repeated, hugging a knee to her chest. “of what?”

“I don’t know,” he repeated, shrugging his shoulder for affect this time. “Getting hurt again? I don’t know.”

“Sometimes it’s hard for us to focus our fear on one direct object or situation after facing trauma. Would you say your fear has turned into paranoia?” Trina asked him, dark eyes scanning his face.

“Yeah… No… Maybe,” he hummed while shaking his head quickly, almost in frustration, hands piano-ing over his thighs. “I don’t know.”

“How have you been sleeping? How many hours of rest do you think you’re getting?”

“Three… Maybe four,” Spencer said lowly, ashamed of his answer. The average adult needed seven to nine hours of sleep a night to maintain a healthy sleep schedule, and he was far from that. “Some nights are worse than others.”

“Do you have nightmares?”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

“Related to your trauma,” she clarified, and Spencer’s hand stilled for just a second before they continued their ministrations against his pants. He nodded mutely, his leg beginning to bounce rapidly where he sat. Nightmares were pretty routine for him. He would get a few hours of sleep only to wake up in a fit, screaming and crying. Derek would avoid touching him but would gently murmur to him, tell that he was safe and nothing was going to hurt him and he would gradually calm down. He usually didn’t get any rest after waking up though, and oftentimes, Derek wouldn’t either. It made him feel even worse, knowing that his own deteriorating mental state was ultimately impacting his partner’s wellbeing as well.

“Nightmares are completely normal, Spencer. The more you learn to cope though, the more easier they’ll be to deal with. Do you have any coping mechanisms now?”

Spencer jerked his head side to side. If he had any coping mechanisms, he probably wouldn’t have turned back to drugs again. It seemed like the only option at the time.

“That’s okay. Hopefully we’ll be able to find some that work for you. What are some hobbies you like? Maybe reading, exercising, being around friends?”

“I like to read… And I write letters to my mom,” Spencer muttered. He hadn’t written to her in a while. She was probably worried, since he usually tried to send one every other day at least. Now though, it had been about a week.

“That’s really good, Spencer! Have you ever considered taking up a new hobby? Finding something that’s new and interesting to us can really help our minds move past flashbacks and unpleasant memories,” Trina said with a smile, “A lot of the common ones that some people like to take up are things like yoga and meditation, creative writing, um… you know, stuff that helps us take our minds off of things.”

“I don’t… I don’t really know,” he said softly, biting at his cuticles now. “I like to write in general.”

“I’d like you to consider doing something with that. You don’t have to share it with anyone, but sometimes it’s nice to get those feelings out in a way that you can understand.”

“I will,” he said with a nod of his head.

“Good… Now, a lot of people who have gone through what you’ve gone through will often feel certain emotions like shame and guilt. There’s a stigma attached to the trauma that can make it easy to manifest feelings like that. A lot of people are also afraid that others will look at them in a new light, and they may feel inadequate or less of a person than they were before it happened. Sometimes it’s easy to disconnect from yourself after that experience, and it can turn into a disgust for your body and the feelings you have. Do you feel that way sometimes?”

Over the past few months, he had grown to hate the very body his consciousness occupied.Rape made his body the enemy. He was disgusted with himself, and the memory of how he just lay there, frozen like the world around him would forever be engrained in his mind. His rationale told him that he did what he had to do to survive, but his emotional side couldn’t get over how little he fought. He had never felt more repulsive in all of his life.

“Yes,” he said, his hands trembling atop his legs now. He could feel himself getting upset, having to think about it again like that and putting himself back in that position. Trina didn’t say anything right away, simply looking him over and waiting to see if he had anything else to say. When it was clear that he didn’t, she continued on.

“It’s important for you to know that it may feel scary or even dangerous to reconnect with yourself and your feelings. But it’s actually more dangerous to avoid those feelings. When you’re able to reconnect, you’ll feel safe and confident again. You’ve got to give your body time to heal, because it isn’t going to happen overnight. With that being said, I’ve got a few tasks I want you to do before I see you again next week,” Trina said with that same gentle smile, ripping off a piece of paper from her notepad she had been writing on, not the same as her notebook.

“First, I want you to avoid drugs. If you’re thinking about using again, you need to tell someone, okay? Second, I want you to consider a new hobby. Whatever it may be, let yourself focus on that and turn it into a coping mechanism for whenever you’re feeling antsy or if you think you might experience a flashback. Third, I want you to talk to someone about how you’re feeling - not just me. I know it’ll be hard sometimes, but even if you can give him a one word description of how you’re feeling, it can help him to help you. Finally I would like you to take care of yourself, both physically and mentally. Think you’re up to the challenge?” She asked cheekily, grinning now and moving to stand up. Spencer nodded his head and followed her movements, standing up as well.

“Y-Yeah… I think I can try,” he said, and Trina bobbed her head happily.

“As long as you try,” she said, walking him to the door. “I’ll see you next week, Spencer. Take care of yourself, okay?”

“I will,” he said, and after saying goodbye, he walked out to the waiting room where Morgan was waiting for him dutifully. He looked up upon seeing his lover, and he smiled fondly at him before standing and leaving with him without a word between them. Spencer even allowed Derek to press a hand to the small of his back as they headed out together. When they made it to the car, they sat in silence for a few moments, and Spencer had a hundred thoughts running through his head. He didn’t know how to reveal to Derek the way he felt without breaking down, and that thought scared him, since he hated for his lover to see him so weak. But luckily, Derek didn’t seem to think that at all, because his hand slowly reached for Spencer’s, and Reid clung to it like it was his lifeline.

“How did it go?” He asked softly, looking over with warm chocolate eyes that seemed to melt the ice inside once more.

“It… went,” he said, swallowing nervously and running his fingers over Derek’s, feeling his pulse thrumming calmly against his skin. “I… I think it will help, in the end.”

Morgan had never looked more proud, and he squeezed Reid’s hand gently before raising it up and slowly pressing his lips over each and every one of his knuckles in slow, adoring kisses. “I’m so proud of you, Spencer. I told you we’d overcome this. I’ll be here with you every step of the way.”

“I know,” Spencer said, and when he turned to look through the windshield, the sun seemed to shine a little brighter than before.

* * *

_“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”_

-Dr. Maya Angelou

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on Tumblr - @makaylajadewrites


	14. XIV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the extra wait between chapters! My mental health was not in the greatest state, but I've been doing a lot better. I hope you enjoy the next chapter!

_Every time you think you are broken,  
Know this, you are never really breaking  
No one can break an ocean,  
darling, all you are doing,  
is breaking the glass that is holding you back,  
diving deeper into your own depths,  
discovering yourself in pockets  
of the most somber waves_

-Excerpt from “The Ocean You” by Nikita Gill

* * *

Task one: Avoid drugs

That was a little harder than Reid had anticipated. He was clean once again, and it felt like he was starting from square one. His session with Trina had been yesterday and he had gotten out of the hospital after his overdose two days before that, so he was only four days clean. He still felt horribly guilty for giving up his sobriety, ever so briefly, just to make the pain go away for just a moment. But he still couldn’t get rid the cravings, and he made sure to let Morgan know if he ever was craving so that he could offer him his support. He was beginning to open up a bit more in terms of his feelings, which Derek was both surprised and pleased to see, but Spencer was still working on growing comfortable with someone else knowing how he felt.

The cravings hit him on the same day as his session with Trina, and while Morgan was doing who-knows-what in the kitchen with Was blasting from a bluetooth speaker, Spencer was sitting on the couch, an open book in his lap. Yet his eyes were not focused on said book, and instead he stared holes into the beige living room wall while a hand mindlessly stroked over the most recent track mark as well as the lingering scars. He was stuck in his head, and the desire to shoot up was almost enough to make him consider it. But he promised Derek he would stay clean, and he told him that he was craving, and Derek distracted him by talking with him about academic topics that Reid enjoyed (even if he didn’t understand them), or a particularly interesting cold case that Spencer was intrigued by.

“Do you remember that one case they asked us to consult on a few years back? The one in Iowa where the killer’s signature—“ Morgan started, only for Reid’s eyes to open wide, an almost excited expression on his face since he loved to talk about things that he found fascinating.

“Oh, where he painted on their bodies? How could I forget? They were both recreations of Van Gogh’s artwork - I hate to admit it, but the body with the Starry Night painting was… actually pretty well done. You know, Van Gogh actually painted that piece in Saint-Paul de Mausolée Asylum. He was reported as having extreme paranoia and hallucinations, and he eventually committed suicide. Our killer went dormant after only two bodies and I remember there was some disagreement regarding what happened to him. Most of the detectives think he was either institutionalized or imprisoned, but _I_ think he committed suicide too. The second body had a recreation of Van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows, and that is most commonly believed to be Van Gogh’s final work before he died. It makes sense that he would follow in the footsteps of the artist he idolized most, don’t you think?” He asked simply.

“It makes sense… I guess we’ll never really know, unless he decides to pop up again - dead or alive,” Morgan said.

All his life, Spencer had been a pretty reserved person - he was shy in situations that didn’t involve academics, and his social awkwardness made it difficult for me to relate to other people and express his own emotions. But that didn’t mean he was absent of them. In fact, Spencer was bursting at the seams with hidden emotions, but he realized that it was getting to be a problem, and he couldn’t rely on his old ways anymore.

That brought up task two; find a new hobby.

He considered asking Garcia to teach him how to knit - knit, crochet, sew, whatever it was she did - but shot down that idea almost immediately since he needed something a bit more stimulating. He ended up telling Derek about Trina’s request for him, and being Derek, he suggested that Spencer go exercise with him, rather it be a jog around the neighborhood or heavy lifting in his basement - but Spencer was quick to decline that offer since exercise had never really been his niche, clearly, since he was quite out of shape to be an FBI agent. Derek also suggested cooking. Spencer was good at cooking _in theory_ , because he knew exact measurements without having to use any measuring tools and could recite even the most complicated recipes with their instructions off the top of his head, but whenever he tried to apply that knowledge, he always failed miserably. So that was a no.

Derek didn’t really have any other ideas, but he did mention that it might be worth it to explore his more creative side. Spencer wasn’t a very artistic person, but he often liked to doodle in his notebooks at work and in the margins of papers, but the majority of it was nothing more than scribbled characters and unrealistic. Most of the time, drawing was just something he did when he was bored, and he couldn’t see it working as a full time hobby.

But that was when he remembered a study he had once read about teaching musical instruments to people with ASD, and the benefits it had towards their communication skills and emotional perception. Perhaps he should try picking up an instrument - when he was younger, the idea had never really seemed that appealing to him before so he never took up an instrument. He was more interested in books and reading and learning, never a creative outlet. But it wasn’t too late to start. He told Derek about his idea, and Derek was ecstatic and immediately supportive of the idea, even if Spencer decided not to pursue it.

So he went out with Derek one day to a music store that a friend of his owned. It was a small place, but it had instruments ranging from keyboards to ukuleles, and while Derek was catching up with his friend, Spencer wandered around the store. Eventually, he found himself in front of en electric keyboard sitting on its stand, and he slowly sat down on the stool in front of it, his slender fingers sliding over the black and white keys. Almost instantly, he felt a sense of calm wash over him, and Spencer took a deep breath before plunking at the keys in a pattern based on pure math. He loved Beethoven and Mozart, Schubert and Bach, because classical music was calming to him, and it helped him relax when his mind was jumbled and his thoughts ran together.

“You like the keyboard, baby boy?” Derek hummed in a low voice as he approached him from the side. Spencer’s hand withdrew and it felt back to his lap, and slowly he nodded his head, looking up to Derek with bright hazel eyes.

“I do,” he said, his hands fidgeting in his lap. Derek laid a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently in a reassuring motion.

“Good,” he said softly, and no more than ten minutes later, they were walking out of the store with Derek carrying the stand while Spencer had the keyboard. Once in the car together, Spencer took Derek’s hand on his own, lacing their fingers together and simply holding it on top of his thigh. Morgan looked over at Spencer in surprise, but a smile grew on his lips. They held hands the entire way back to Derek’s house, where Spencer had been staying unapologetically. Almost all of his personal belongings had been moved in, and even the majority of his clothing was in Derek’s closet and dresser. Many of his books and academic journals had migrated to Derek’s office, filling up one of the empty bookcases and fitting into the empty spaces on the other ones. It wasn’t like Derek minded though, because if it were up to him, Spencer would be completely moved in by now.

They set up the keyboard in the guest room, where Spencer sometimes went when he wanted some alone time, and almost instantly, he sat down in front of it, tapping keys curiously in different patterns, and even though none of it was incredibly sophisticated or complex, the tune was soothing to him and he felt his mind drifting. Morgan was somewhere in the room with him, but he wasn’t really paying attention to placement. The feeling of the smooth planes under his fingertips was nice and calming, definitely unlike the rough material of his clothing sometimes when he grew overwhelmed and overstimulated.

The third and fourth tasks went hand in hand.

He stopped after just a few minutes, looking back over his shoulder to see Derek sitting as patient as could be on the edge of the bed, just watching him with those soft brown eyes with no judgement on his face. Spencer felt a smile tick his lips upwards, and he stood from his place in front of the keyboard to sit beside Morgan on the bed, turned partially to face him. Derek mirrored his actions, and Reid took it upon himself to reach for his hands. Their skin color contrasted greatly; Spencer was as pale as the ivories and Derek was a warm caramel. But it made no difference to either of them - they loved regardless.

“I want to thank you, for staying by my side through all of this,” Spencer said quietly, intimately. It was something that Spencer could never appreciate enough, since Derek truly was the best partner he could ever hope to have. Derek just smiled, squeezing his hands and raising them, brushing his lips over his knuckles, nuzzling the slender fingers against his cheek.

  
“You don’t have to thank me, baby. What kind of man would I be if I let you go through this alone?” Morgan hummed, and Spencer couldn’t help the shy smile that grew on his lips.

“I just… Sometimes I feel like I’m a burden to you. I know you must miss the way things used to be, how _I_ used to be, and I’m just so grateful that you’ve stayed with me through this,” Spencer said, unable to help the way his voice broke halfway through. Derek was quick to cup his cheek, wiping away a stray tear that graced his pale cheek.

“Of course I miss the way things used to be. But I’ll never fault you for that. I’m so grateful to still have you here with me - I thought I lost you, twice I did, and I’ll never let you doubt even for a second that I still love you. You know that, right?” He asked, and Spencer instantly nodded his head.

“I know… I love you too, Derek,” he said, pursing his lips before licking them nervously.

Morgan could tell almost instantly that he was growing anxious about something, Reid’s fingers fidgeting in the grasp of his own hands. “What’s wrong?” He asked gently, but his concern was clear.

“I, um… I was hoping we could…” he started, but he looked away in embarrassment, his cheeks flushing pink. “You know…”

“I _don’t_ know, Spence,” Derek said, frowning and squeezing his hands encouragingly. “What is it?”

“Could we… make love?” He asked in a whisper, and Derek’s eyes widened in shock, but he had to blink it away immediately so as to not upset Spencer or make him any more nervous.

“Spencer, baby… Are you sure that’s a good idea?” He asked him, “It’s not too soon?”

“It’s been almost four and a half months…” he pointed out weakly. There was so much more he wanted to say, so he took a deep breath to calm himself down so he could get it out before he had the chance to break down. “I’m ready, I think. I-I can hardly close my eyes at night, because I’m so afraid that I’ll open them and just see darkness again. I feel his hands on me in my _dreams_ , Derek, and tonight I just want to feel _your_ hands and _your_ lips and _your_ lo-“ he broke down, a dry sob passing his lips before the tears even began to fall. Derek cupped his cheek and angled his head upwards, leaning in to press their lips together in a gentle, chaste kiss. When they separated, mouths just centimeters apart, Reid took a deep breath before saying clearly, “Your love.”

Morgan smiled and leaned in to kiss him again, and Spencer had never felt more adored in all his life. He raised his arms, looping them around Derek’s neck while his lover’s large hands held his waist securely, yet gave him plenty of space to slip free if he wanted. But he didn’t, and Spencer decided that he would never deprive himself of physical love ever again.

Morgan held him so carefully, as if he would fall apart in between his hands, and Spencer was so grateful, because that was a very real possibility. He was fragile, breakable, but he was almost certain that Derek would handle him with care. Warm lips trailed down his neck, sucking gently in spots that had been memorized over years of intimate moments together, and Reid’s breath hitched and the softest gasps and moans escaped from him. Pulling away, Derek initiated eye contact between the two of them as he began to unbutton Spencer’s shirt, taking his time and giving Spencer the opportunity to stop him if he felt like it was too much, but he did no such thing. He couldn’t, because he needed this in order to feel _right_ again.

Derek simply looked over his body, taking in the sheer sight of Spencer alive and well before him. He wasn’t a half frozen corpse out in the tundra, he was here with him, warm and flushed, and as pretty as the day they first met. Spencer smiled shyly at him, brown eyes flecked with gold shining in such a way that rivaled the stars, and Derek was reminded of the beautiful man he had fallen in love with all over again.

“Let’s go to your room,” Spencer hummed softly, moving to stand from the bed, his shirt discarded on the floor somewhere that was of no concern to either of them at the moment. Derek followed his movements, pulling him close and kissing him softly before gently correcting him, “ _Our_ room.”

They made it to the master bedroom eventually, stopping to share kisses along the way. Derek guided Spencer to the center of the mattress, gracing him with soft hands and warm lips, and reminding Spencer of the heaven they created when they were together. Clothes were shed and Derek was guided to lay overtop of his smaller lover. Their lips met, more times than either could really recount, and soft murmurs of love and sweet nothings were shared between them. But the hardest part was yet to come.

It had been months since he had been aroused, and as he strained, almost painfully so, against his stomach, Derek met his eyes and grasped him gently like the stem of a rose, careful to avoid pricking his fingers on any thorns. But Spencer only brought him closer so that their lips could seek each other’s, and he moaned his pleasure into Derek to transmit those feelings rapture.

“You’re so beautiful,” Derek whispered, his breath warm against his cheek, “Are you sure you want to do this?” And Spencer hummed softly, his legs falling apart around Derek.

“I’ve never been more sure in my life,” he responded, and Derek smiled, a sight far more astounding than the Northern Lights themselves.

Warm, slicked fingers took their time, easing their way into his innermost being with nothing but devotion to him. He kept his eyes locked onto Derek’s, reminding himself that it was him and not someone else with ill intentions. He was safe here, he had control of the situation, and he never wanted it to end. His toes curled as Derek stroked him in time with his fingers’ movements, the sweetest of cries passing his lips as he was brought to completion after just a few minutes.

He lay panting, chest heaving as he rested back against the soft pillow, chestnut curls framing his head like a golden halo. Derek pressed kisses over his tummy and thighs, nuzzling against his hip and touching him like he were made of gold. Spencer brushed his hand over the back of Derek’s head, and with one last kiss over his protruding hipbone, he ascended up his body to become eye level with his lover once again. Their lips met in a soft kiss, and Spencer breathed Derek’s name, his legs raising to hook around Derek’s waist. That was all the confirmation that Derek needed to know his lover was ready for him

The sensation of Derek entering his body wasn’t reminiscent of pain, and in fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so utterly whole. Tears flowed like rivers from his eyes, and Derek kissed him over and over again until he received a whispered “I’m okay,” from Spencer, and his hips began to fall into a gentle rhythm into Spencer’s core. The entanglement of their souls was enough to send Spencer into a world unlike their own, where pain no longer existed and his body was weightless among the stars. Spencer bloomed like a rose for Derek, his legs trembling like red petals in the gentle breeze as their shared orgasm washed over them. Their eyes met in a blend of browns, their lips soon followed, and Spencer was complete.

* * *

_“Life is the flower for which love is the honey.”_

-Victor Hugo


	15. XV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright everyone, we're approaching the end of Metanoia! I'm looking at one, maybe two more chapters until it's finished! Thank you all again for your support and I hope you enjoy Chapter 15 :)

_“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”_

-Toni Morrison

* * *

Spencer and Derek slept in the same bed that night. After making love, the two men ordered takeout and showered together, unable to resist the temptation of sweet kisses and gentle caresses. Derek pressed kisses all along his shoulders, up the expanse of the column of his neck, over the track marks on his forearms. There was hardly an inch of skin that went untouched by Derek’s lips, and he reminded him every few seconds how beautiful he was, and how much he was loved. Spencer would be lying if he said he hadn’t cried, but fortunately for him, the rain of shower water made it difficult to really tell - although his sobs were a dead giveaway.

As lovely as their shower was together, it was chaste, and by the time they got out and dressed for the night, their food had been delivered just on time. They ate a peaceful dinner together, talking about anything and everything. Reid mentioned his mom, Derek talked about work, and once they finished up, they wandered into the bedroom together and lay down like nothing had ever disturbed them in the first place. It was almost like things were back to how they used to be, but the way that Spencer’s body gave a telltale flinch as Derek’s arm laid over his waist was a constant reminder of the trauma he carried with him.

“Hey, Der,” Reid murmured softly once he was comfortable and safe in Derek’s arms, back to chest in the king sized bed. Derek let out a gentle hum against Spencer’s skin, kissing jut of bone at the top of his shoulder.

“What is it, baby?” He asked softly in response, and Spencer sighed at the gentle squeeze of Derek’s embrace.

“I think I might be ready to go back to work,” he said, and Derek was silent for a few moments after, contemplating whether or not that was a good idea. It was still so soon, but just tonight, Spencer had proven to him how much he was healing already. He still had a long way to go, but the intimacy they shared tonight was proof that he was recovering.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” he said honestly in response, rubbing one large hand over Spencer’s clothed stomach, mindlessly playing with the hem of the shirt he wore - which just so happened to be one of Derek’s shirts.

“Why not?” Spencer asked, “I helped with the last case!” He was so desperate to get back to work, to fall back into his normal routine again. He knew it would be hard, but staying at home constantly was driving him stir crazy, and he honestly didn’t know how much longer he would last. Derek hadn’t been on a case in about a week, and when he was gone, he was dying to get his hands on a case file and at least read about it. He offered to consult, but Derek assured him that he needed to focus on resting. But after easily persuading Penelope to send him copies of the case files, he was able to at least text and call Derek with his theories and ideas.

In the end, he had ultimately led to the break in the case, even two hundred miles away.

“Spencer…” Morgan started, a pout on Reid’s face. He rolled over in Derek’s arms to face him, meeting his eyes.

“Do you think Hotch will at least consider it?” Spencer asked, and Derek knew with complete certainty that Hotch would base his opinion off of _his_ opinion of Spencer’s wellbeing, since they were a couple after all. The team didn’t know that they were basically living together, but they knew very well that Derek spent extensive amounts of time with Spencer outside of work. He talked about him constantly, after all, always keeping them up to date on how he was doing.

“I don’t know,” he lied, believing himself that Spencer wasn’t ready just yet. He has experienced a trauma, a pretty life-altering one at that, and four and a half months simply wasn’t long enough in his opinion. After all, Derek was a victim of sexual abuse, and he was still recovering from that to this day.

“Will you ask him? Please?” He whispered, reaching a hand up to cup Derek’s cheek. Morgan sighed, knowing he wouldn’t be able to tell his baby no, and he turned his head in Spencer’s hand to kiss his palm.

“Yeah… I will,” he said, “as long as you promise me that you’ll continue to take care of yourself when you go back to work.”

“Deal,” Spencer said with a small smile, and Derek couldn’t help but lean in and claim those pretty lips in a soft kiss, letting out a deep hum into his mouth. Spencer giggled quietly as they pulled apart, meeting his eyes once more before bowing his head and tucking it underneath of Derek’s chin. Derek pressed a kiss to his curls, resting his cheek down against his hair.

“I’m proud of you, you know,” he said as a soft reminder, his eyes closing.

“I know,” Spencer murmured quietly, a soft yawn soon following as a predictor of what was to come. They both fell into a restful sleep, and not once was Spencer forced awake by a lingering nightmare.

The next week proceeded just as the ones before it, Spencer growing more and more bored in the house and continuing his sessions with Trina, which definitely did seem to help. He was learning to think of the trauma in a different way - in a way that promoted self growth and change. In only his third session, he was able to recount what had happened to him without breaking down completely. It was difficult, and many tears were shed, but he did it, and she praised him for being able to talk about the trauma. He was strong, she said, and the strength he had now would only grow as he learned to live past the assault.

But on Friday, Hotch asked him to come in that morning so that they could talk. Spencer was elated, but understandably nervous, and Derek reassured him that it was definitely a good kind of talk. He didn’t go into any more detail, but Spencer couldn’t get rid of the grin on his face as he put the pieces together, realizing that Hotch was most likely going to ask him if he would like reinstatement to the BAU, after being placed on temporary leave.

“Whoa, look who it is!” Emily exclaimed upon seeing Reid at Derek’s side as they entered the bullpen, and the young doctor simply smiled and shrugged, a mug of coffee in his hand as if he had never left. “Are you back?”

“I don’t know yet. Hotch wanted to talk to me,” he said, adding in determinedly, “But I’m ready.”

Morgan frowned, and Prentiss didn’t miss that at all. “You don’t think so?” She asked him curiously, but before he had the chance to respond, their attention diverted to JJ who approached the trio with a joyous smile on her face.

“Spence!” JJ cooed as she came in, approaching the tall man with extended arms. Spencer’s smile returned in full force and he hugged the blonde warmly as she said, “It’s so good to see you.”

“You too,” he said fondly as they separated, looking up to see Penelope coming closer, tapping along in her heels with the brightest of grins on her face. She was as colorful as ever, wearing a pink dress with a flower clip in her hair - a pink daisy, if Spencer had to guess.

“Oh, my precious baby, it’s so good to see you!” She cried while gathering him up in her arms. He hugged her too, nearly breathless after her tight embrace. The woman sure knew how to hug.

“You too, Garcia,” he said, “I missed all of you so much.”

“Are you back to work?” Garcia asked, and he repeated what he said to Prentiss; he wanted to be, but he wasn’t sure just yet. He couldn’t really imagine _not_ going back to work at this point since he was looking forward to it so much and almost expecting it. He chatted with the group for a little while longer, Morgan’s arm at some point snaking around his waist, his hand resting on top of his hip. It is such a natural act, neither of them seem to notice how all of the girls share a look of knowing and fondness. But soon, Hotch passed by them, and he and Spencer meet eyes briefly before he is pulling away from Derek to follow after him, his family wishing him luck on his departure.

In Hotch’s office, he closed the door behind him as Hotch settled in, setting down his briefcase and black duffel bag - his go-bag, before sitting down in his own chair, letting out a deep sigh. He gestured in front of his desk to the chairs there, “Have a seat, Reid,” he said, and Spencer instantly does so, meek as usual but holding himself with a bit more determination than before.

“First off, how are you doing?” Hotch asked kindly, folding his hands overtop of the desk and looking over Spencer, most likely scanning for micro expressions or minuscule behaviors. Spencer doesn’t give him what he wants though, keeping himself poised and calm despite his wracking nerves.

“I’m well. I’ve been going to therapy and it really seems to be helping me out a bit,” Spencer said almost eagerly, beginning to fidget with his hands in his lap. Aaron watches the movements for only a second before reaching into a drawer in his desk and withdrawing a fidget toy, setting it down for Spencer to take if he wanted to. He had bought a set when Spencer first started working at the BAU, since he knew the boy liked to stim with toys and gadgets. Spencer saw the toy and immediately reached for it, the mint green Infinite Cube at the mercy of his nervous hands.

“That’s good,” Aaron said simply, nodding his head and sitting up a bit straighter. He watched Reid play with the toy mindlessly in his lap, his hands never faltering, before taking a deep breath and getting Spencer’s attention. “The bureau is giving you the opportunity to come back to the BAU, so long as you are able to pass the psych eval.”

“I can do it,” Spencer said without hesitation, his hands stilling as he bobbed his head immediately. “I’m ready.”

“Reid…” Hotch said, raising a hand as if signaling him to calm down and be quiet for a moment. “I talked to Morgan a few days ago about this. He doesn’t seem to think you’re ready just yet but he’s willing to support you in whatever decision you make. If you need more time you know that none of us will think any different of you. We’ll support you for as long as you need it.”

Spencer frowned, going back to fidgeting with the cube, opening it up flat in his palm before folding it back into a three dimensional shape. “I’m ready. I know I am. I-It might take me a little longer to adjust back into it, but I can do it, I know I can,” he said almost desperately, looking up with those wide brown eyes, a newfound strength lingering in the dark pools.

“I figured you would say that,” Hotch said, sighing and standing up from his desk. “I’ve scheduled you for a psych eval this morning. Are you up for that?” He asked and again, Spencer quickly nodded his head, a smile growing on his face.

“Y-Yes, Sir, I can do it,” he said, standing up as well and keeping the toy in his hands before holding it out towards Hotch. Hotch just shook his head, placing a hand on Spencer’s back and gently leading him towards his door like he would a child. But Spencer didn’t take offense to it, and instead he felt reassured. He kept the cube in his hands, turning to face Hotch whose hand raised up to his shoulder, squeezing lightly.

“It’s good to see you doing well, Spencer,” he said, and the doctor just smiled before stuffing the toy in his messenger bag and heading off to his psych eval.

* * *

“Everyone to the roundtable room,” Hotch called from where he stood on the raised catwalk outside of his office, watching as his team began to stand from where they sat at their desks, looking a little confused.

“Do we have a case?” Prentiss asked Derek who instantly shrugged, but a smile grew on his face as the realization of what was going on seemed to be catching up to him, especially since as he walked into the roundtable room, Spencer was standing near Hotch, his hands folding in front of him but twitching occasionally, clearly desperate for a fidget toy he kept in his messenger bag something else to busy his hands. Spencer stood taller than he had in quite some time, the smallest of smiles remaining his lips, and when they met eyes, his smile seemed to brighten considerable.

“Everyone, I’d like to announce the reinstatement of Supervisory Special Agent Dr. Spencer Reid to the Behavioral Analysis Unit,” Hotch said, a hint of pride in his tone. An eruption of applause and cheers filled the room, and Spencer couldn’t stop himself from smiling. Morgan, without any care for public decency, lunged forward and gathered Reid in his arms, holding a hand against the back of his head as Spencer giggled through the sobs that took over, pressing his face into Derek’s shoulder.

“God, I’m so proud of you, pretty boy,” Derek said, and the nickname, although at one time had completely ruined him, inspired him to lean forward and press their lips together in the sweetest of kisses. The girls all hooted at the scene, but neither man seemed bothered, and when they pulled away, they smiled at one another and their foreheads rested against each other’s.

“I couldn’t have done this without you,” Spencer murmured just for Derek to hear, and Derek simply shook his head, claiming his lips in a kiss once more.

“I didn’t do anything, Spencer. The strength was always inside of you.”

Their celebration turned into a meeting very quickly, because soon after, Hotch received a call from a neighboring town asking for their help. And like clockwork, they all took their seats at the roundtable, and when Garcia began passing out the acquired case files, he held it in his hands like it was meant to be there.

And when he opened that file with hands that were no longer fidgeting to see the crime scene photos that had once haunted him in his dreams, he didn’t even flinch.

* * *

_“We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”_

-E. E. Cummings


	16. XVI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has certainly been a long, and at times difficult and painful, journey. I've never wrote a fic that has left me emotionally drained at times, but from those droughts comes great inspiration, and after two months, I have completed Metanoia. This fic, although difficult at times to write, has truly become a meaningful work of art in my life that demonstrates my own personal growth and struggles, and although I know it is not for everyone, I am incredibly pleased with how it turned out. 
> 
> I want to give a big thanks to all of you, because without your support, I most likely would have given up after only a few chapters in. I’m tearing up as I write this, because although it seems small, this is a great accomplishment for me. I am grateful for the many kudos and comments, and your unwavering support is what has guided me along the way. Thank you again, and I hope you enjoyed Metanoia

_“Trauma creates change you don’t choose. Healing creates change you do choose.”_

-Michelle Rosenthal

* * *

“Put down the gun, and put your hands above your head,” Spencer said calmly, lowering his own gun down ever so slowly.

The case had been going smoothly so far, and they managed to locate the suspect after his fourth body had dropped. Twenty two year old Patrick Ray was a victim of maternal abuse - his mother would physically abuse him and his younger brother relentlessly although he received the brunt of it. She would send him to sleep in the garage when she had had enough of him and put him in dresses as a form of humiliation and mental abuse. His brother had committed suicide when he was only thirteen, leaving Patrick to suffer for four more years alone. He had lived through hell, admittedly, but when he killed his first victim at the tender age of eighteen, he had only spiraled further into the darkness. His life had been one torment after another, and in the end, he had simply snapped by targeting women that reminded him of his own mother.

But now, he had made it to his true target all along, the woman for whom those surrogates represented, and as he pressed a gun to her temple, Reid’s determination didn’t waver.

“No, she needs to pay for what she did to me!” Patrick wailed, his eyes wide and filled with unshed tears that had been building up for years and years. The hand around the gun was trembling terribly, his jaw clenched so tightly his teeth were grinding together. “She deserves to die!”

“Patrick, listen to me. We know what your mom did to you; the abuse, the garage, the dresses… But killing her won’t solve anything. It won’t take away the pain, and if you cooperate, we can seek justice for you and your brother,” he said, “Logan deserves more than this, don’t you think? So why don’t you put that gun down so we can help you honor your brother’s memory?” Reid gently instructed, and when Patrick looked at him incredulously, Spencer slowly nodded his head in reassurance. As his demeanor shifted, Patrick succumbed and his wrist twitched. He slowly lowered the gun until it was at his side, his fingers uncurling around the grip and it clattered to the ground. Instantly, Rossi stepped forward to cuff him, and Reid let out a deep breath he didn’t realize he had been holding. A hand clasped down on his shoulder, and he looked over towards his lover who was beaming with pride.

“Good work, pretty boy,” Derek, annunciating his words with a squeeze to his shoulder before he let it fall, the two exiting the mother’s residence together. And even as the chaos of flashing lights and amplified voices went on around him, he looked towards Morgan with such happiness, such fulfillment, that he was happy.

Once the case had been completely wrapped up, the team slumped into their seats on the jet, preparing to go home. Spencer took his seat at Morgan’s side, shamelessly curling into his side, under the arch of his arm. Nobody said a word, and the only responses they received were the nonverbal smiles from each teammate - even Hotch smiled at the couple.

The two each let themselves rest into one another, Spencer’s head against Derek’s chest while the older man’s arm lay around his shoulders, his hand mindlessly stroking up and down his bicep. “You did good today,” Derek said in a low murmur, and Spencer lifted his head slightly in order to look up at him, a small smile on his pretty lips.

“You think?” He asked.

“I know so,” Derek said sweetly in response, “You always amaze me, you know.”

“How so?” Spencer questioned, shifting his entire body to face Derek, a hand splayed across his chest and fiddling with the buttons on his dark Henley, but his golden eyes never strayed from Derek’s. The darker man just sighed, a smile touching his lips as he leaned down slightly to kiss the tuffs of Spencer’s curls.

“You just do. You came back to work like you had never left, and you were focused the entire time. You managed to subdue a homicidal psychopath with your words alone. You’re _powerful,_ Spencer, and just seeing you back in the field, so confident and poised, it’s just amazing,” he said.

“I told you I was ready,” he said, a smirk twitching the corners of his lips upwards.

“I never should have doubted you. I was just… worried, since you’ve been through so much. Not to mention I was just afraid that… something would happen to you again, and I couldn’t live with myself if I let you get hurt again,” Derek said, hoping that Spencer would understand, but the ever-present smile on his face was proof enough of that.

“I know. I would be the same way if something had happened to you.”

The couple went silent for a few minutes, sitting together comfortably. Spencer had withdrawn a book from his messenger bag, flipping through the pages at leisurely pace - well, leisurely for him, but that still amounted to a page turn every fifteen seconds. Derek continued to stroke his arm gently, his head resting atop Spencer’s. His heart was content, with his life partner so close to him like so, and to see him so relaxed in his arms compared to how he had been just weeks before was truly inspiring. Spencer really was amazing, his endurance untestable and his strength unquantifiable. He was powerful in ways that not even Derek could grasp, since it passed his realm of understanding.

“Hey… Spence?” Derek called quietly, his hand stilling on the young doctor’s arm.

“Hmm?” Spencer hummed, clearly caught up in his book.

“I love you, you know that, right?” He asked softly, and Spencer faltered in his book at the sudden proclamation of love, but he smiled and snuggled his head further into Derek’s chest.

“I love you too,” he said softly in response.

Although the flight was only a couple of hours, it felt like much longer, and when Spencer began to doze, Morgan wasn’t surprised. It had been his first time on a case in a few months, and he had exerted himself more than any of them had expected. But Derek couldn’t be more proud. His lover was recovering, and although he would never be the same, Derek was fine with that. He could long for the Spencer he knew before or he could embrace the Spencer that was coming to the light, and the latter seemed much more preferable. He was going to be fine, and although Derek had doubted him in the beginning, he couldn’t be more sure of Spencer’s vitality now.

Once the jet landed and they were back at the BAU, the team all took their seats at their desks, finishing up the remaining paperwork for the case to officially close it. Spencer plopped down at his desk, already beginning to go through some of the files scattered across the surface. Derek eyed him fondly from his own desk, and after about twenty minutes, the two were ready to go. They headed to the elevator together, but just outside of it, Morgan gently stopped Reid from going any further by grasping his wrist. Spencer looked back incredulously, turning to face his partner.

“Der? What’s wrong?” He asked, and Derek let out a wet laugh, shaking his head and moving his hands to properly grasp Reid’s hands, his long, slender fingers curling around Derek’s instinctually.

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing,” he said. “I just… I had something to ask you,” he said. From the other side of the glass entrance of the bullpen, the team gathered, watching the couple expectantly. From Spencer’s position, he couldn’t see them, but Derek could, and the encouragement he received, albeit silent, was the push he needed to drop down to his knee before Spencer. The pieces seemed to fit together for Spencer, because tears were already welling in his hazel eyes, but he said nothing, waiting for Derek to speak.

“I, um… I know this probably isn’t the right time or place, since you probably would have preferred for it to be in a nicer setting, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t think of a better moment. I-I’m so unprepared, I don’t even have a ring, but we’ve been through so much together. I’ve watched you change, grow… _survive._ I just love you so much, and I can’t imagine my life without you in it. With that said, will you… Will you marry me, Spencer?” He said, his own voice shaking, unsteady, the emotion nearly getting the best of him, especially since the tears that fell down Spencer’s beautiful face were not ones of despair as he had come to known so well. They were far much more welcome, triggered by the irrevocable condition of love and happiness, adoration, and joy.

“Yes,” he whispered, his word dancing across a stream of air that passed those trembling lips. That was all it took for Derek to rise to his full height and gather Spencer in his arms, holding him like he would disappear from his plain of vision should he not hold him tight enough. Reid was crying softly, but the unmistakable, repeated murmurs of, “I love you,” inspired Derek to claim Spencer’s mouth in a kiss. The rest of the team came out into the hallway, applauding them and sharing more hugs. JJ even shed a tear, wishing them both a life of happiness together.

With his new fiancé’s hand holding his own, they departed from the group and entered the elevator, home their ultimate destination. And even as the doors slid close, Spencer’s smile never wavered, and his grip on his lover’s hand never weakened.

* * *

_“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.”_

-Pablo Neruda


End file.
